


Harder than Easy

by highest_water



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-12
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2018-08-08 08:30:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 89,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7750567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/highest_water/pseuds/highest_water
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emma Swan meets Killian Jones when she finds herself hiding with him in the bushes from an overzealous admirer. Turns out he works with David. Turns out he can read her pretty damn well. Turns out Emma Swan has no idea what she’s letting herself in for. CS AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

He follows her outside and she swiftly makes the transition mildly irritated to downright annoyed. She's pretty certain that her monosyllabic answers and hasty exit are fairly clear signs of disinterest but apparently this guy can't take a hint.

She wraps her arms around herself against the cool night air then immediately unwraps them. If he thinks it is a signal of her wanting his warmth than he can go and take a running leap.

He's still jabbering on beside her and really, she thinks he is harmless enough. Pretentious and a little egotistical, but fairly harmless. She can put up with his company for a while longer (if she has to) for the sake of Ruby.

Ruby who had begged her to accompany her to the party so she could spend a little more time with Victor. Ruby who was one of the few people who had stood by Emma during the last year. Thus, she found herself listening to Walsh enthusing about the merits of drinking some hideous cocktail from the right type of glass. He must read something in her shrug as enthusiasm as he disappears back into the house to fix her a drink.

When he leaves she visibly relaxes, letting out a sigh that escapes as a puff of air coiling in the darkened night sky. She rubs her hands up and down her arms for warmth when a voice startles her from the far side of the decking.

'Cold, lass?'

She turns to see a figure in the shadows on the lawn.

She lies.

'No.'

She hears a soft chuckle but can't yet make out who the voice belongs to.

'Well you might want to stop shivering before Walsh returns.'

The comment piques her interest so she peers in his direction and is rewarded when he moves forward into the light cast by the solar lights on the veranda.

He's handsome, she notes. Dark and defined features apparent even in the half light. She immediately stands a little straighter. Her guard up. Walsh she can handle, but she's learned her lesson where a winning smile and beguiling stare are concerned.

'Walsh is a prat. Harmless enough but fairly conceited. He'll talk your ear off about bloody mason jars given half a chance.'

She desperately tries to stop the smile that twitches at the corner of her mouth.

'I don't think that's any way to talk about your friend.'

'Who says he's my friend?'

'You're at a party organised to impress him.'

'So are you.'

She scoffs then, 'So are you? Really? Are you five?'

His only response is a chuckle.

'He's not my friend,' Emma concedes, 'I'm here with my friend Ruby. She -

\- knows Victor.'

At the surprise on her face he goes on to explain. 'He talks about the lass quite a lot.'

'Well I get the other side to that coin.'

He smiles at her then and it throws her off kilter. She's barely said anything and yet she feels _something_ with this guy. Shares something with him. She tells herself it's simply a shared sense of annoyance with some of the pretentious idiots at this party. He somehow, inexplicably, senses her discomfort at being in attendance at the party, at the talk of relationships, at the cold. In fact she's just fairly irritated this evening. (A little on edge that _he_ may show up too.)

'I work with Victor, that's the reason I'm here. Walsh is a professional acquaintance at best,' he shrugs as if hoping his answer will suffice. ‘Perks of the job and all.’

She has no idea why he feels the need to seek her approval. He turns his body back to glance out over the lawn and down to the water stretching out to the horizon. Victor's home really is beautiful. She has no idea how he ended up playing host to a load of the team's sponsors; the company Walsh represents included. She seems to recall Ruby mentioning a fire of some sort at the original venue.

Emma can take in his profile from her position. Sees the dark scruff covering his jaw and stretching down his neck beneath the popped collar of his jacket. There's a pair of gloves (or a hat?) poking out from the pocket of his letter jacket but besides that there is very little concession made to the cold. They make a rather cold and idiotic pair freezing their asses off out here.

She gazes out to the horizon too. Feels more content in the company of his silence than she has all evening. It's then that she hears the catch on the patio doors open and her feet leap into action before she can truly acknowledge the reasons why. She scampers down the steps onto the lawn and grabs the man's arm to pull him further into the shadows with her. Her legs hit the shrubbery lining the edge of the wooden platform and she makes a shushing noise.

(And really, what is she doing? She’s shushing the foliage?)

He makes no alteration to his gaze, which remains firmly set looking out to the water, but there is a wide and amused grin on his face.

They hear the door slide open and the footfall of Walsh's boat shoes as he makes his way out onto the veranda. 'One Walsh special right -'

He stops mid-sentence and Emma can picture him searching for her. Has to press the palm of her hand to suppress the very un-Emma like giggle which threatens to escape her lips until they hear him retreat inside.

'Now, Emma,' her companion grins, 'it's bad form to laugh at a man's attempts at courtship.'

She feels her whole body tense. How does he know her name? She can only reach one conclusion and panics. The air suddenly choking. She needs to go. To leave. Now.

As she turns away, a hand reaches out to grip her elbow. 'Emma, lass, wait.'

She stops but diligently stares at the immaculately mowed lawn before her.

'I meant you no discomfort by using your name. I'm friends with your brother.'

Her heartbeat continues to race but when she wills herself to turn and face him she sees the truth of his words – a stain of crimson upon his cheeks in place of his earlier bravado.

David isn't her brother by any biological sense, but he is in every way that counts. She tries to focus on that instead of what she fears will come out of his mouth next. She doesn't want that to follow her around for the rest of her days. She’s had enough of being that person.

'I've seen photos of you at his house,' he explains. 'Bloody hundreds of them in fact.'

'He can go a little overboard.'

'And Mary-Margaret too. They make a fine pair.'

'I can't argue with that,' she smiles and feels some of the tension release from her shoulders.

\--------

She smiles. And it's a small and tentative thing, but it's everything. He could have kicked himself for the way in which her name tripped from his lips.

Of course she had thought it had meant he had seen that godforsaken video. He refused to watch the damn thing. Had made sure to put it into the hands of the best lawyer he knew but he wasn't about to look at it. Nobody should be put through that humiliation and betrayal, let alone Dave's sister.

Now that he has spent five minutes in her company, Neil's actions only infuriate him more.

He wonders if he were wrong to pull David off of him that day.

He's hesitant to push. Senses her walls go beyond Neil. Yet he doesn't want to find himself without her company tonight. The party is hardly his idea of a great evening but Victor had asked and thus, without Dave or Robin to amuse him, he found himself meandering on the lawn.

Seeing her shoulders relax he holds out his hand to her, 'Killian Jones.'

She takes his hand and he feels how cold her small hand feels in his. Would she permit it, he'd keep her palm in his but he instead proffers her the gloves tucked in his pocket.

He watches as she bites her lip in hesitation but then takes the gloves with a nod of thanks and shoves them onto her hands.

'You're the lawyer then.'

A laugh escapes at her bluntness, 'Come now, Swan, don't say it with such disdain.'

'Well I guess you can't all be bad,' she teases and he takes it as a sign that she feels comfortable enough in his company.

'Ask your brother. He'll tell you I'm not all bad.'

'You're the Jones who calls him out on his need to be the hero and fix everything and everyone, right?'

He nods wondering just how much she knows of him through her brother and sister-in-law.

'Then I think we'll get along just fine,' she laughs and he wishes to hear it again. Makes it his aim to make her smile more in the way that she is now.

'He deserves some ire for not bloody attending this affair,' Killian gestures to the house behind him. 'I offered to babysit the wee lad and all.'

'You didn't?'

He laughs at his own desperation, 'Aye, perhaps not my finest hour.' Offering to mind a month old babe to get out of attending a work related function was maybe a little extreme.

He hands her the bottle of beer he's been mindlessly sipping from and she wordlessly takes it from him and takes a substantial gulp.

'Walsh has had quite the effect on you then.' He says tongue in cheek and he knows he may be pushing his luck somewhat but he's rewarded with a roll of her eyes and a thwack on his arm.

'You're not getting you beer back now.'

He knows it is entirely nonsensical but he's pretty sure this woman is stealing his affections as well as his beverage and gloves.

They're both quiet for a while and he feels something akin to content. Being in her company feels oddly right.

'So we both know why I'm hiding out here,' she says as she toes the grass with her boot, 'but what are you doing out here at your own work party?'

He realises she's acknowledging that he knows it is more than Walsh's bemusing company that has driven her into hiding. Wonders if it is his place to tell her there is absolutely no way in which Neil will be here. That since Victor had stepped in to host the party following a fire at the venue, he now had some control of the guest list. That Victor, for all his ‘Victorisms’, was as furious as any of Neal’s other teammates with an ounce of morality.

He decides to tell her if the conversation sways that way. Perhaps selfishly, he doesn't want to spend more of their time together discussing somebody else.

Running a hand through his hair he chooses his words carefully. 'I'm a little tired of this side of my job this week.'

Her answer is brilliantly blunt. 'You mean the false flattery and schmoozing?'

He laughs at her turn of phrase but nevertheless finds himself in agreement. 'This would be my fourth evening of, as you put it, 'schmoozing' this week.'

She tilts her head as she surveys him then nods her head in agreement, 'I get that.'

She probably does, he realises. She, like David, is a team doctor but for the football team (although it would never truly be ‘football’ in his eyes) in the city. Like David, she probably ends up attending a fair few of these kinds of events too.

'It's all part off the job, I'm aware, but every now and then I would just like to forget about it.' Then, without thinking, he adds as an afterthought, 'Plus, I burnt more than a few bridges with these guys last year so it's probably best left to the Lady Belle this evening.'

'How the hell do you manage to burn bridges with your club's sponsors? Even I know that's not the smartest move when millions of dollars’ worth of sponsorship is on the table.' There's mirth and interest in her questioning but Killian would like nothing more than to take it back.

He can talk his way out of almost any situation presented to him (comes with the lawyer territory) yet he doesn't wish to lie to her or circumvent the truth as a substitute for lying.

\--------

She senses she's hit a nerve with her question in the way he reaches his hand behind his ear. It's a curiously bashful move for a man who presents with so much confidence.

(Truly, it was an innocent question.) She half thinks about giving him an out and changing the subject when he answers.

'Well I laid down the law, so to speak, following an incident with one of our former players last season. They didn't take too kindly to the club's wishes but I reminded them where the money was and well that was that.'

Panic rises within her as she listens. She senses that it is her situation that he is alluding to. That Neil is the former player. That the termination of his contract and personal sponsorship with the club’s kit sponsor is what was at stake.

'It wasn't really about the money though.' He shrugs as if his actions were minor. She has no idea what to say. A part of her hates that he seems to know so much about her when she knows so little of him. That he seems to have somehow helped her without even knowing her and yes she knows it is his job and he may have acted out of motivation to support David, but it still counts. It still means something.

She's starting to think his earlier claims to not being 'all bad' have more than a little truth in them.

Emma finds herself oddly at a loss for what to do next.

He offers her an out when he suggests an undercover mission to get more beer.

It turns out to not be so much undercover as a leisurely stroll to his car where he still has a six pack of beer in the trunk (or the 'boot' as he claims it to be) from his grocery shop. She teases him for the contents of his 'boot'. Putting the cereal, alcohol and tea bags ('essentials' he deemed them) aside, it looks as if he is prepared for an overnight camping expedition.

He tells her she won't be laughing when she benefits from his preparation skills. Begrudgingly, she has to agree when they make their way back and she is now wearing a snug beanie and scarf both belonging to him.

They wander further away from the house and down to the water's edge. He swings the remainder of the six pack from his hand and she tries her best to not survey him too much.

She doesn't do this. Not anymore. Hasn't let herself be so unguarded with anyone for quite some time.

When the lawn gives way to the wooden slatting of the jetty, the heels of her ankle boots ring out into the cool air.

They move to the edge and sit. She crosses her legs beneath her to protect from the cold and he idly swings his off the edge.

'No blanket to sit on then?' she quips.

'There is in fact two in the car but I thought it would be a little presumptuous of me,' he raises an eyebrow at her and she snickers at his words.

Normally such a comment would drive her mad. She'd be on the defensive and ready to go. It doesn't feel like that with him though. She knows it was to make her laugh and it has worked. (She has laughed quite a bit this evening.)

'So why do you have all that stuff in your car? Doesn't really seem typical for a sports lawyer?'

'My elder brother, Liam, lives in London still. Up until very recently, he was a captain in the Royal Navy.'

She can hear the pride in his voice. Can see it in the soft look in his eyes. Once she would have been jealous of such a connection but then she found David (or David found her) and now she just understands.

He drinks from his beer as he mulls over his next words, 'He's more than a brother to me. I owe him everything. Our parents weren't around and he raised me. Got me the scholarship to study here...'

She wants to tell him that she gets it. She can hear it all in his voice. Gets what it is like to feel so utterly grateful and indebted and unworthy of someone's time.

'He was like a mother hen when he first packed me off over here and, well, he fussed in the way that a twenty five year old man would. He taught me what he knew. Just happened that was survival tactics rather than how to cook a lasagne. The value of being prepared.' He picks at the bottle label and leans further back onto the decking. 'I guess the car is just a way of honouring that. Of trying to do right by him.'

She wants to say something of comfort but doesn't really know how to verbalise it. Words of the heart are not really her strength. 'Well I for one am grateful,' she quips as she pulls his check scarf a little tighter around her.

He smiles at her and the emotions it stirs up inside her terrify and excite her at the same time.

'Glad to know it hasn't gone to waste.'

She asks why Liam had recently left the Navy and is then shown several pictures of Killian's new niece on his phone. She has the same bright blue eyes as Killian and would give Little Leo a run for his money in the cuteness stakes.

'Sorry, lass,' he says as he closes the photos, 'you probably have no interest in seeing all off those.' He reaches behind his ear again and Emma's heart clenches. He cares. She can feel it.

This time she reaches out to lightly squeeze his hand lying on the decking next to the bottle. 'I'm glad I got to see them. She'll be a little heartbreaker.'

'Aye,' he grins, 'maybe I'll have to move home to fend off her suitors.'

She rolls her eyes at his dramatics but something about the set of his jaw makes her think he'd actually consider it.

'She's seven months, Killian, not seventeen. Relax!' She makes a poor effort to stifle her laughter when he frowns at her.

\---------  
She's teasing him. She's teasing him and it feels right. To be out here, with her. Just sitting and talking. It makes more sense than all of the falsities and the calculated smiles indoors.

He wants to kiss her. To feel the warmth of her lips beneath his. To hold this beautiful, smart woman and make her smile, but he senses that it would be the wrong move. He recognises the walls she's built all too well. He knows that were he to kiss her now she would likely run for the hills and if not… well it would be nothing more than one glorious night. He can almost hear the mumbled words of 'A one-time thing' tripping off her tongue.

He wants more.

And so he will wait.

He walks her to her door when he drives her home a little over an hour later. It takes all of his will power to walk away but Killian Jones is nothing if not a patient man.

\--------

She's left feeling utterly confused. The car ride to her apartment hadn't been full of tension or something else equally dramatic. Their easy rapport provided a welcome relief from the butterflies in her stomach as he had walked her door. ( _I'm always a gentleman, love._ )

He'd smiled at her in such a way that the corners of his eyes crinkled. He'd told her he'd had a wonderful evening. Thanked her for providing him with some charming company on a night he had thought would be bitterly dull. He'd leaned slightly towards her. A simple tilt of the head and she felt her heart race.

Then he had whispered a, 'Goodnight, Swan,' and left. Left. She stood on her porch and watched him drive away before angrily slamming the door behind her as she stepped inside. She yanked off his stupid scarf and hat and threw them on the table by the door.

She was cross.

She wanted desperately to be cross with _him_ but found her arguments failing to measure up. She was cross with herself. She had wanted desperately for him to kiss her. Had wanted him to kiss her for most of the night. To feel the scruff of his beard beneath her fingertips.

She was cross because she couldn't do this. She couldn't afford to let her guard down again. She hadn't given him permission to make her feel something and yet here she was furiously pacing in her hallway trying to forget all the stupid jokes and quips he makes and the way his cheeks dimple slightly when he laughs.

She shakes it off.

She can't take a chance that she's wrong about him.


	2. Chapter 2

He drives back to his apartment feeling bewildered by his evening. It was wonderful but he can’t help questioning his choice. He repeats ‘It would have been a one-time thing’ as a mantra in his head until the words bleed into one. Most of him believes it. Most of him dearly wishes he had kissed her anyway. 

It’s been a long time since he felt so strongly about a woman - about wanting to do right by her and he feels that Emma Swan has been wronged too many times before. He will not be one of those people regardless of where his knowing her goes from here. 

It’s late and he’s tired but the welcome rest of sleep does not come. He finds himself sitting out on the pathetically small balcony which came with his apartment instead. A tumbler of untouched rum on the glass table before him and his feet propped up on the ledge. Small as it may be, you can see the water and it had pretty much been the selling point of the whole thing. It’s far too cold to be enjoyable but the feelings Emma had brought out in him inevitability leads to thoughts of Milah.

For the first time in a long time the memories don’t feel quite so bitter but their sorry tale still plays on a pitiful loop in his mind. He’s jolted from his demons by the buzzing of his phone on the glass table top. He smiles somewhat when he sees David’s name on the display – he knows where this conversation is heading. 

‘Dave, mate. Is the babe keeping you up?’

‘You could say that.’ There’s the slightest hesitation before his friend continues. ‘So how was tonight?’

Killian has no idea how to answer that honestly. It’s too late for him to open the can of worms labelled, ‘Well I met your sister, mate, and she’s bloody fantastic,’ so he settles for the alternative. ‘Fine. The sponsors were out in full force and Victor was an enigmatic host. Belle worked her magic from the sounds of things.’

He hears David’s chuckle. ‘Didn’t turn on the famous Jones charm then?’

‘I’ve used my quota for the week.’ One too many functions had left him feeling a little hollowed out this week. He loved his job but sometimes the scheduling meant too many encounters with elitist and arrogant business folk in one week for his liking. 

Dave’s quiet on the other end so Killian takes the plunge. ‘He wasn’t there.’ 

‘Thank God. I think I’ve driven Mary Margaret a little mad with my pacing tonight.’

‘Or at least I don’t think he was.’

‘You don’t think? What does that mean?’

‘Well I hid outside for most of the night and had the pleasure of meeting your sister so even if Neal were there, she didn’t see him. We shared a couple of beers outside and dodged most of the crowd.’ 

‘Good, that’s good,’ there’s a pause and he can almost hear the cogs turning as David plans his next question. ‘Look, Killian I know she tells me I’m being overprotective and I know she can take care of herself but how did she seem to you?’

‘You’re worried she’s not okay?’ If David’s worried, then maybe he should be worried.

‘I worry she doesn’t let people in. She’s always been guarded and now since everything that happened she just seems on auto-pilot with her life.’

He doesn’t really want to talk about Emma behind her back (She’s certainly had enough of that in the past year.) but it’s David and he’s her family and Killian wants to ease his concern. Yes, it was clear Emma has her walls but it was just as clear that she’s strong and determined and capable of laughter and anything else she so wishes.

‘She seemed good. Careful, but good. Better for escaping Walsh’s fascinating company.’

That earns a laugh from David, ‘Oh God, he didn’t try to woo her with his knowledge of cocktails did he?’

‘Something like that.’ And Lord he realises he’s smitten when he can’t help but grin at the memory of her running down the steps to hide beside him. ‘We made a fine pair hiding out on the lawn drinking beer in the darkness.’ 

‘I’ll bet. I’m glad you were there though, Jones.’ 

‘Are you really? Your sister told me quite a few stories about you tonight. I’m sure they’ll come in handy.’ He’s pushing David’s buttons but the groan his friend releases is worth it. ‘We can team up against you now.’ 

‘You’re insufferable, you know that right?’

‘Aye, and you wouldn’t have me any other way.’ 

There’s a muffled curse and then something more intelligible. ‘I’ll see you at work.’

‘See you tomorrow, mate.’ 

He hangs up and collects his things to move inside. The warmth is an immediate comfort and he raises an eyebrow in surprise at the untouched rum before he tips it away down the sink. The call from his friend had been just the tonic he had needed. He is surprised again when sleep comes easily.   
\--------  
She’s running late. Actually running. Her phone battery had died around an hour ago and her meeting addled brain couldn’t locate it in her office. She pushes open the door to the café with probably a little more force than is actually warranted to be greeted by the sight of David sitting in their usual booth casually reading the paper. She marvels at her brother’s propensity for calm. She’s twenty minutes late with no contact. If it were her she would be panicking that they weren’t going to show or that something had happened.   
She slides into her side of the booth and finds a steaming mug of hot cocoa placed before her by their usual waitress. She smiles her thanks to Ashley. Wednesday lunches had become a thing for them since she had moved back to the city two years ago. 

‘Caught up at work?’ 

‘Yep,’ she pulls at the tie in her hair and shakes her hair free. ‘My feet are killing me.’ Running in heels was never a good plan.

‘How’d it go?’ 

She nods with her mouth full of hot chocolate. ‘Pretty good I think. Just working with one of the guys coming through from the youth team. He seems like a good kid. Have you ordered?’ 

He feigns hurt, placing his hands over his heart. ‘You wound me.’

Her answering snort is anything but ladylike but she’s grateful when her grilled cheese arrives a few moments later. David’s regaling her about Leo’s latest antics and she’s laughing watching a video of her nephew on David’s phone when the notification bar flashes that he has a message from Killian.

It’s ridiculous that it makes her heart skip a beat. Seeing his name makes her nervous and Emma Swan doesn’t really do nervous. ‘You have a message,’ she mumbles as she hands the phone back.

Whatever it is makes David laugh and Emma is grateful she has a mouthful of sandwich when he says, ‘Killian mentioned the two of you had spent the night together at Victor’s.’

Spent the night? Who says that someone’s brother? There had certainly been no ‘night spending’. She squashes down the voice that whispers, There wasn’t even a kiss.  
David’s expression remains relaxed and carefree and she realises she has read far too much into the statement. They had spent the evening in each other’s company. It was innocent enough.

She’s unsure of what to say so settles for a brief ‘We did.’

‘I hear he helped you to escape Walsh’s affections.’

Laughing at the memory she explains how she had ended up fleeing from him onto the lawn but her interest is a little piqued as to how her meeting Killian had come in conversation until it hits her like a tonne of bricks.

‘You asked him whether Neal was there didn’t you.’ She hates that it still comes out a little accusatory even after all this time.

She watches David scrub a hand over his face. ‘I’m sorry. I did. I know you can handle yourself but I care, okay? That’s what I’m here for.’ 

He looks genuinely pained at the thought of overstepping and Emma finds herself reaching over to squeeze his hand. ‘I know you do. Thanks for having my back.’

‘Well I do have a bone to pick with you though,’ he leans back folding his arms over his chest in what should be a threatening move but Emma knows him too well. ‘You’ve been sharing stories about with Jones. I’ll never hear the end of it!’

She throws her head back and laughs at how disgruntled he appears. ‘We can team up against you now.’

‘That’s what he said,’ he mumbles and Emma pops an onion ring into her mouth in victory. Maybe knowing Killian Jones could be fun after all.   
\--------  
Work has been busy. Impossibly so. It’s that time of the season where things start heating up just as the weather cools and she feels as if she is doing twenty things simultaneously. She loves her job, is damn good at it too, but sometimes she just needs a quiet moment. She finds herself wondering down towards the water with a cup of take-out coffee in her hands. It’s another cool morning and she tells herself that’s why she has Killian’s beanie hat firmly pulled down over her ears. In reality it’s soft and it smells good.

It’s early and cold so besides a few dog walkers she’s free to let her mind drift as she walks along. She’s lost in her thoughts when a gust of wind blows her hair across her face.   
Her curls get stuck on her chapstick and she’s laughing to herself as she pulls the sticky mess from her face. As she looks up that’s when she sees the figure running along the front. A grip of panics seizes her that it is Killian. They’re a fair distance from her but there’s something in the build and the gait that makes her feel it’s him.

Shit. 

She’s wearing his hat.

She panics. Panics and all but runs away from the front and turns down the nearest street. It’s too early for the shops to be open so she keeps her head down and carries on walking.

She’s slopped coffee down her front in her haste. Her hair is once more stuck in her chapstick. She’s an idiot, she thinks. It likely wasn’t even him. She shakes her head resigning herself to the fact that she has just behaved like a nervous school girl.

It must be the tiredness.  
\--------  
Ironically, the cold is making his lungs burn. He’s about finished his three mile loop and is fully considering stopping to get a coffee. It’s 8am on a Saturday after all and he’s up and at ‘em so he figures he’s doing better than most. When he looks ahead to judge how close he is to the coffee place he likes, he’s sure he sees a flash of blonde. He pulls up short. Cramp be damned. His heart beats a little quicker and it’s not from the run. Emma. She’s gone before he knows it and he shakes his head a little in disbelief. Since when has Killian Jones gotten giddy over a flash of hair? There are literally hundreds of blondes in this town and here he is thinking (hoping) every one is her.

It must be the early hour.  
\--------  
Emma’s phone vibrates on her dash as she pulls into her driveway. She pulls the bug’s stick into gear to stop it from rolling down the slight incline but isn’t quick enough to catch Mary Margaret’s call.

She hits redial as she turns the key in her front door and sets her now cold take out cup on the table by the door with her keys. 

‘Hey, Emma. I hope I didn’t wake you.’ Her friend’s voice is still full of its usual warmth but it’s laced with tiredness.

‘No, you didn’t. I just got home actually.’ Emma moves through to her little kitchen and opens the fridge only to find it pretty much empty. Maybe she should do a grocery shop and pretend to be a real adult.

She’ll probably just make do with the pop tarts in the cupboard.

‘You just got home? Emma have you been out all night?’ 

‘Stop trying to live out your wild days through me,’ she laughed. ‘I’d just been for a walk down by the water.’

‘Everything okay?’ 

‘Yeah,’ she sighs. ‘Just a busy week. How’s Leo?’

‘Well that’s kind of the reason I was calling. I need to try and get out of the house with him more. It feels like such an ordeal to do so at the moment but practise makes perfect I’m hoping.’

‘When are you thinking?’ Emma asks. 

It surprises her how much she enjoys being in Leo’s company. She’s never really been a baby person. Had always wished it were socially acceptable to say ‘pass’ when colleagues of newborns and neighbours were being handed around for cuddles. Kids she didn’t mind so much because they did more and had a little personality. Babies she could take it or leave it.

Leo is different though. She loves being around him. Admittedly, she doesn’t have to deal with him waking her up at all hours of the night but he’s pretty fantastic.

‘How does brunch sound tomorrow? I’d say breakfast but it’s taking us a while to get ready at the moment.’ There’s a hint of frustration with herself in Mary Margaret’s voice. 

Emma wants to tell her that she’s a fantastic Mom and that all new parents have to adjust but she knows her friend will work that out for herself in the end. 

‘Sounds perfect. What time do you guys want me to come over?’

‘Shall we say ten thirty?’

‘Ten thirty it is then.’   
\--------  
She’s running. Actually running. Again. How was it that she had been up with the birds the day before and then today she was still dead to the world at ten am? She jumps up the last couple of porch steps and knocks on the door. Glancing at her phone she makes it to be 10.35 am. Not too bad.

Mary Margaret swings open the door and greets her with her usual hug. She’s ready to go bundled up in a beret and pea-coat. Leo is in his stroller and Emma could blush at the fact that she has thrown on a beanie hat to cover up the fact that she hasn’t brushed her hair and has thrown on an oversized sweater and leggings. 

‘Well you guys are far more presentable then me,’ she jokes as she leans down to peek at Leo in his stroller. 

Mary Margaret waves away her comment, ‘Oh nonsense.’ Emma’s a little pleased if she has made her friend feel a little better.

‘Where’s David?’ she asks as they manoeuvre the stroller down the porch steps.

‘He’s gone for a run while I intend to eat pancakes.’

‘Sounds like an excellent plan.’ 

They decide to walk to the diner. It’s about twenty minutes from the Nolan’s but it’s a pleasant walk and Emma gets the feeling Mary Margaret wants to be outside in the fresh air for a while. She’d been through the ringer during Leo’s birth and was only really just finding her feet again. 

She fills Mary Margaret in on what’s happening at work. How they had finally secured the move for one of the young players they were after. She loves Mary Margaret for asking about the outreach program Emma has set up for the players on the team to work with local school to help get the children into reading. 

They’re merrily chatting away as they round the corner that the diner is situated on when Mary Margaret lets out a happy squeal. ‘Oh look, there’s the boys.’ Emma rolls her eyes with a smile that Mary Margaret can still be so delighted to see her husband after being separated for half an hour.

The boys it turns out, refers to David and Killian. David and Killian who are running on the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street.

‘David!’ Mary Margaret calls next to her. 

Emma looks at the floor, into the stroller, anywhere really that isn’t at Killian as they slow to a walk and make their way over to them. 

David walks right up and plants a kiss on Mary Margaret who yelps that he is sweaty but kisses him nonetheless. 

‘We’re working hard over here!’ David protests as he gazes at his son. ‘We’re what? Four miles in?’ He asks Killian. 

Emma finally shifts her gaze to look at Killian who answers David in the affirmative but his eyes are on Emma.

‘Swan,’ he nods at her.

‘Jones.’

His eyes crinkle in the corner as he turns his attentions to Mary Margaret. Emma registers his asking after little Leo and how some furniture he has built is working out in the nursery. She can’t help but note the way in which his sweat soaked tshirt is clinging to his muscles or the way it hitches up at the back as he kneels to say hello to the sleeping Leo. His hair peeks out from underneath his beanie hat at the back and Emma hates to admit it but he’s managing to be adorable and hot at the same time. 

‘Emma?’

She must have entirely missed David’s question. ‘Sorry, I was miles away.’

‘I said can you make two for Wednesday lunch this week instead of the usual time? I have a physical to complete for one of the returning players.’ 

‘Two should be fine,’ She nods. ‘I’ll check my diary when we’re inside and let you know.’ 

‘Great,’ he grins then slaps Killian on the back. ‘Four down, one to go then.’ 

‘If you can keep up old man,’ Killian jests. 

‘You are six months younger than me!’ 

Killian waggles his eyebrows at Mary Margaret. ‘I think I hit a sore spot,’ he grins as he leans down to peck her on the cheek.

When he turns to her, he smiles. ‘Nice hat, Swan.’ And with that he turns and sets off across the street.

David huffs something about an unfair head start, plants another kiss on his wife and then tears after Killian. 

They move to enter the diner and Emma finds herself only mildly embarrassed that Killian has seen her wearing his hat. He seemed amused more than anything and Emma tries to reassure herself that it’s a good hat and it’s not as if he seemed in a hurry to get it back.

They order their food once they’re settled at their table and it’s then that Mary Margaret thumbs the edge of the hat Emma had set down on top of her gloves.

‘Killian’s right you know. It is a nice hat. Although your outfit is a little black, perhaps. You could have swapped Killian one of his hats for another. That maroon one he had on this morning would have added a nice bit of colour.’ 

Emma feels her mouth drop open. How could she know? It’s a black beanie hat. You can buy them from hundreds of stores. 

‘How? How do your stupidly accurate teacher senses allow you to know that it’s his hat?’

Mary Margaret just smiles at her over the top of her mug. 

‘Spill.’ she demands.

‘It’s the little logo here.’ She points out the small beige logo resembling, to Emma’s mind, a wigwam. ‘He’s at our house often enough for me to recognise them.’

Emma feels herself blush slightly but mumbles out a grumpy response about it being comfy.

‘Oh, I’m sure it is.’ 

Emma tenses, feeling there are questions to come. 

‘I’m not going to ask how you have his hat or why you’re wearing it –'

‘-really?’

‘Yes, really. I’m just going to say that he’s a good guy.’ 

‘And that’s it?’ Emma asks in slight disbelief. Mary Margaret is the most meddlesome person when it comes to others love lives. It comes from a good place but can be more than a little over zealous at times. 

She smiles at Emma the picture of innocence. ‘Yes, that’s it. He’s a good guy. A good guy with a good hat collection.’ 

Emma throws the damn hat at her.


	3. Chapter 3

Months ago, she’d had a brilliant idea for David’s birthday gift and now they day is in fact just a handful of days away, she finds that said idea has completely disappeared from her brain. She has spent the last hour trawling around the stores after work in hope that it would come back to her when she sees it but no such luck.

She sighs and heads back to the clothing store he favours thinking to grab him a couple of shirts and then she can team it with a day out or something that the two of them can do together. He’d like that.

He himself always nails gift and as much as Emma would love to be able to claim it to be Mary Margaret’s influence the truth is that he has always been that way with gifts. She remembers the first year his family had taken her under its wing.

She had been completely overwhelmed by the banners and the cake and the special birthday meal for her and that was before they even got to the gifts. Plural.

David had bought her a game for his console which they could play together when she had opened her gifts in front of the family but it was when she went up to her room (her _own_ room) later that night that she had spotted her real gift from him.

Sitting atop her bedside table was a framed photo of the two of them. David had his arm swung around her shoulder and she was looking across at him with laughter dancing on her features. She clutched the photograph to her and traced their happy, smiling faces. He’d known, somehow, that she wouldn’t have quite coped with seeing it in front of everyone. She was slowly starting to let them in but would still retreat to the comfort of her own walls when pushed too hard.

She shook her head chasing away the memories as she selected the shirts and moved to pay. The two women at the checkout were busily chatting to another in a way which mildly irritated Emma. It wasn’t exactly that she wanted them to chat to her per se, but it seemed like terribly self-absorbed customer service.

She couldn’t help but overhear their chatter as they tissue wrapped each of the shirts.

‘Honestly, I could have stared at him and that sexy stubble all day long,’ sighed the redhead.

Her friend nodded enthusiastically in agreement. ‘They need to put him up on our display posters. Sales would double.’

‘I asked if he needed help checking the size fit,’ the redhead mumbled and at least she had the decency to look at little shame faced at throwing herself at a customer.

‘You didn’t?’

‘I did. I’m mortified. He even blushed and said they were a gift for a friend.’

They handed over the shirts to Emma without acknowledgement and Emma walks away as the friend shrieks in laughter at the other.

She texts Ruby to ask if she wants her to pick up a card for David while she grabs one and gets a reply to the affirmative.

**You beaut. Thank you. It is 8pm on Friday, yes?**

_Yep. Going to head earlier to help MM set up._

**Victor and I will be there at 8**

_More like 8.30_

**Hey! I could pretend to be offended here!**

Emma grins. Knowing full well that if it isn’t a work meeting then Ruby Lukas will not be on time. Annoyingly, she always gets away with it. Breezing in her with her easy smiles and charm. The comment about her and Victor arriving together hadn’t gone unnoticed and Emma was pleased that her friend at least didn’t need to resort to hitting on innocent customers.

Truly, they seemed a good match. It had been on the cards for quite some time since they had met when Emma moved into her new place last year and Victor had turned up with David to help do some of the heavy lifting. Ruby had been doing approximately no heavy lifting but did have a flair for finishing touches. It was testament to how much Ruby liked him that she hadn’t really mentioned their evening together at the sponsors’ party a few weeks ago.

Emma realised with a jolt that Killian would likely be there too. Imagines he was likely there last year too while she was at home being a certified mess. She can’t help the smile that crosses her face despite feeling nervous. She was a disaster zone when it came to relationships. There had been Neal as a teen and then Walsh and then years later, when she really should have known better, Neal again.

She sighed and thought a glass of wine really didn’t sound too bad right about now.

\---------

Bloody hell. He’s late. He loathes being late. It was one of the rare things David teased him for and not the other way around. ‘An unnecessary irritant of the lazy,’ he had deemed it after a client was fifteen minutes late with no explanation once and David had never forgotten it.

He was ready on time of course. Present wrapped and card written when his phone had signalled Liam’s call and then he’d completely lost track of time.

It was now a little after nine.

He pushed open the entrance to the private room they’d hired and was immediately greeted by the sounds of happy chatter and laughter. The place had been decked out in simple birthday attire and the place was packed. Dave Nolan might be a low key ‘just a few birthday drinks’ kind of guy but he was also incredibly well liked. He spotted Dave and Mary Margaret chatting with a few others at a table in the far corner. Dave saw him approaching and excused himself to make his way over to him.

‘Mate, I’m so sorry I’m late. I came as soon as  –‘

Before he could finish he’d been pulled into a quick hug by the birthday man. He pulled back and David fixed him with his earnest stare.

‘Don’t apologise. I got your message. How’s your niece? How’s Liam?’

David pulled him aside to the far end of the bar where it was a little quieter.

Killian dragged his hand through his hair and sighed. ‘She’ll be alright. It’s some form of virus but then she had a reaction to the first medication they tried. Her fever is high so they’re keeping them in until they’ve got that and the reaction under control.’

‘Good, that’s good news that they know what it is at least and she’s in the best place.’

‘Yeah, I said the same to Liam but it won’t have helped. I feel a mess so I can’t imagine what he and Elsa are going through.’ Truthfully, there were few times in his life that Killian had heard such genuine fear come from Liam’s mouth. He was always so assured and calm. He was Killian’s bloody hero. It had felt foreign to temporarily adopt the role of the older brother grounding Liam with his words of comfort. It had unsettled him.

‘Yeah. I can only imagine. You sure you’re good to be here?’

‘Of course,’ and he smiles then. A genuine smile. David’s reaction had only confirmed that Killian was damn lucky to have made a fast friend in him during the last eighteen months he has worked in the city. ‘I can’t do anything from here and Liam will ring if there’s an update. Now,’ he signals to the bar tender, ‘let me get you a drink while you open your gift.’

He hands over the gift bag while he orders them a couple of drinks. He hesitates over placing an order for a glass of red for Mary Margaret. His single, male mind unsure if she will be drinking after the birth but he’s spied Ruby Lucas and is pretty certain the drink will not go to waste if Mary Margaret doesn’t want it.

David chuckles beside him at the comedy gifts in the bag and thanks him for the shirt. He clinks his beer to Killian’s before taking a swig. ‘Thanks, man. Much appreciated.’

‘You’re welcome. Happy Birthday.’ Then turn to lean their backs against the bar and survey the scene before them. David’s smile is wide and carefree. ‘It’s a good turnout, Dave.’

‘It is,’ he grins again and Killian wonders how many drinks he’s had. There’s a definite sheen to his eyes should you look for it. ‘You two weren’t joking about teaming up against me were you?’

Killian’s brow furrows. Teaming up?

‘Argh, here she is. My lovely sis!’ Emma is suddenly pulled into David’s side as she moves to walk past them.

Killian sees a flicker of something pass over her face before she grins at David’s antics. ‘I was just saying that if the two of you teaming up means being bought my favourite shirts then I’m okay with it.’

He watches as Emma takes in the shirt peeking out of the top of the gift bag on the bar top. ‘I may have bought him the same shirt in a different colour.’

She turns to him and smiles and it’s the best thing to happen to him all night. ‘Good minds think alike then, lass.’

‘So long as those minds are only used for good.’ David picks up his and Mary Margaret’s drinks to head back to his wife. ‘Come over and sit with us when you’ve got another drink, Em.’

She nods in agreement as he leaves the two of the alone in each other’s company for the first time since they’d met those weeks ago.

She looks beautiful in an emerald green blouse draped into the skinny jeans he can’t help but appreciate. He trying his damndest not to stare but he’s so far gone for her already.

‘What are you drinking then, Swan?’ he offers.

‘Oh, you don’t need to do that.’ She waves off his gesture and catches the attention of the bar staff.

‘I know I don’t need to but I want to.’ He replies. Something about his honesty seems to surprise her and she nods in acquiescence.

‘What can I get you?’ asks the bar man.

‘I’ll have what he’s having,’ she nods towards the half-drunk beer in Killian’s hand.  She drinks beer. He catalogues the fact for another time. He’d known that from the other night at the party but he wasn’t sure it that was merely because it was the only drink available to her without having to inflict Walsh’s company upon herself once more.

‘Thank you,’ she says to him when her drink arrives. ‘So I didn’t want it to seem like I was trying to eavesdrop but I heard part of your conversation before on my way back from the bathroom. How’s Poppy?’

He’s touched that she’s remembered his niece’s name. He hopes that explains the guilty look before – accidentally overhearing a private conversation.

‘No worries, lass. I have no problem with your knowing. She’s in the best place. I think it’s just scared us all there for a moment or two. They’re staying at the hospital. Elsa’s sister has gone to pick up some of their things for them.’ He picks at the corner of the beer label on the bottle and reveals what he hadn’t to David. ‘I just feel awful being so far away. I can’t _do_ anything.’

‘Hey,’ she reaches over to squeeze his other hand which is resting on the bar, ‘You wouldn’t be able to do any more if you were there.’

‘I guess,’ he sighs and he knows, truly, that she is right but he still feels a little helpless.

‘She’s lucky she has so many people in her life who love her.’ He hears Emma state firmly and he knows from the set of her brows that there’s a story there regarding her own childhood.

Sensing she needs a change of conversation he comments on the shirt scenario. She laughs and then gasps as she pulls her hand over her mouth.

‘What is it?’ he asks

‘When did you go to the store to get the shirt?’

He’s more than a little puzzled from her response. ‘Erm, early Tuesday evening I think. I went straight from work.’

Her laughter then rings loud and true. ‘Oh my days, you’re Mr Sexy Stubble!’

‘I’m Mr Who?’ He’s beginning to wonder just how many beers Emma may have had now too.

\----------

For one wild moment she is fairly tempted to kiss the confusion off his face when she announces that he is ‘Mr Sexy Stubble.’ She gathers her wits enough to explain and is only endeared more when his cheeks flush red. He’s only had one beer from what she can tell so the rosy red cheeks are definitely from embarrassment and not alcohol.

When he regains his composure she supposes she was asking for him to comment on the ‘Sexy Stubble’ thing.

‘So you think my stubble is sexy then, Swan?’

She rolls her eyes at his blatant and ridiculous flirting. ‘It’s reported speech.’

‘I shall shave tomorrow then if the lady doesn’t like it…’ he teases as he rubs his hand over his chin.

He’s got her there. ‘Don’t. I maybe don’t hate it,’ she mumbles. His eyes light up like Christmas. ‘Although it would almost be worth it to see the reaction of the redhead in the store…’

He scowls at her and announces that the next round is on her for her teasing. They make their way back over the group and she finds herself tucked into his side on one of the benches. It’s a lovely night and she sees Killian’s worries lessened by the company as the night wears on. They spend time happily chatting away to the whole group but they also spend plenty of time talking to each other. David keeps throwing nervous glances their ways as if he actually fears some great masterplan that they’re cooking up.

Being in his company is as easy as their time spent chatting out on the lawn at Victor’s. The unease she had felt about bumping into him is erased by his conversation. He’s warm and charming and he makes her laugh. He is also insanely handsome and yes, she does find the stubble sexy.

David and Mary Margaret eventually stand to leave eager to get back to little Leo who is in the more than capable hands of a colleague of Mary Margaret’s. Emma is again surprised that no comment or furtive glances have been thrown her way by Mary Margaret. Motherhood must have changed her Emma surmises.

The other guests begin to make a move soon after. Ruby comes to say goodbye as Victor fetches their coats.

‘We’re off,’ she announces as she leans down to peck Emma’s cheek, ‘You look beautiful, Em. Remind me I need to borrow that shirt.’ Emma laughs as Ruby nods to Killian and then moves over to where Victor is waiting for her with coat in hand. She and Killian wave goodbye to them and Emma turns to finish off what remains of her drink.

‘I couldn’t agree more,’ Killian says and his voice suddenly seems more intimate. Whether it’s the fact that the bar is now emptying or how despite that he speaks it quietly as if it is a private moment between the two of them.

It overwhelms her.

She takes the out.

‘You want to borrow my shirt too?’

He doesn’t miss a beat when he says, ‘Aye, you’ve got me there, Swan,’ but he tilts his head at her a little sadly. A little too understanding.

‘Ruby wasn’t your ride was she?’ he asks changing the subject for her.

‘What? Oh no. I got a cab here. I’ll just get an Uber home or something.’

‘I can drive you,’ he offers, ‘My car’s outside and I’ve only had two beers.’

She says yes.

\---------

She did look beautiful. He couldn’t _not_ tell her. She deserved to know how stunning she was. He half knew before he even said it that she wouldn’t take a compliment with ease but that didn’t stop him. Emma Swan deserved to be told how amazing she was.

He’d let her deflect the comment not wanting to make her feel more uncomfortable or ruin what had been a lovely evening. It had been just the tonic following Liam’s phone call. He loved her company. Felt himself smiling and laughing and oddly hopeful in a way that he hadn’t in quite some time.

They’re driving back to hers in comfortable silence. The late hour at the end of the working week catching up with them both.

‘You remember the way?’ she breathes unable to hide the surprise in her voice as she looks across at him.

‘Aye.’

She hums in acknowledgement but says nothing further. When they reach her place, he steps out of the vehicle to see her to her door. She fishes the keys from her purse and pushes it into the lock. He opens his mouth to say goodnight when she surprises him.

‘Why didn’t you kiss me?’ Her expression is a little fierce. Almost cross in the way her brows knit together.

‘Excuse me?’

‘After Victor’s party when you dropped me home. Well, I thought that we’d…that you might…’ she trails off and fiddles instead with the clasp on her bag. Gone is the fierceness of the prior statement. Her walls cracking just enough for him to glimpse her insecurity.

‘I bloody wanted to.’

Her head whips up then.

‘Aye,’ he nods, ‘I wanted to kiss you then and I have very much wanted to kiss your all night.’

He can see his words have thrown her somewhat. She works her lower lip with her teeth but there’s a slight smile on her face. ‘Okay,’ she whispers and he wishes he could erase whatever doubts bloody Neal has put into her head.

‘I like you, Emma,’ he reaches forward to tangle his fingers with hers. ‘I like you and I think you might like me too but I don’t want this to be a one-time thing. I want more than that. You’re brilliant. You’re brilliant and I know…’ he stumbles a little over his words here. He doesn’t want to overstep or be presumptuous or speak for her but if this is his chance he needs to tell her or he’ll bloody regret it. ‘I know you might need a little time but I am more than willing to take it slow.’

He swallows down his nerves and continues when he sees the way her eyes are shining.

‘I have no intention of going anywhere, Emma if that’s what you want.’

There. He’s said it. He’s laid his cards on the tables as carefully as he can.

She kisses him.

It takes him by surprise momentarily but then he pulls her body closer to him and cups her head to change the angle of their kiss. Her hands toy with the hair at the nape of his neck and he decides this is something he loves. As is kissing Emma Swan.

She pulls back eventually but there’s a smile on her face and a thank you whispered against his lips.

He’s fully aware that they are standing on a doorstep at silly am in the freezing cold just grinning at one another but he can’t find it in him to care at how ridiculous they may appear. He leans down to press another kiss to her lips before he departs.

‘I’ll see you soon, Emma,’ he promises. He’d like to see her tomorrow truth be told but he doesn’t want to press his luck.

He backs away from her door towards his car, reluctant to turn around when she is still standing there smiling at him.

‘You will, will you?’ she challenges.

‘I know where you live.’

‘That’s a little creepy you know…’ Her teasing is roughly in line with her brother’s half-hearted attempts at the art, but it’s certainly more endearing.

‘You wound me, Swan.’

‘So, are you just standing there now?’

‘I’m waiting to see you get inside safely,’ he gestures to her wooden front door behind her with the slightly off centre number 17 adorning it.

She mumbles something he can’t quite hear but he does hear catch the ‘Goodnight, Killian.’ as she turns to head inside.

When the door shuts, he climbs into his car and pulls away. His thoughts once more filled by Emma Swan.

\----------

He actually waited for her front door to be firmly shut behind her before he drove away. It’s a foreign concept to her. To have someone care so unashamedly. Of course the Nolans cared. They would win prizes for caring really if such things existed and then there was Ruby and other friends at work too but this was different. This was a guy. And guys, Emma Swan had come to learn, tended to be out for themselves in the end.

Killian seemed different. He seemed different and it scared the crap out of her. She’d had a great night and then she had to go and blurt out about him not kissing her. Subtle, Emma.

His kiss was different too. Different in the best kind of way. Maybe she could do this with him? Maybe she could be open with someone? He seemed to read her pretty damn well as it was.

She flopped down onto her bed almost too tired to bother showering off the bar. She knew she’d regret it in the morning if she didn’t. She hauled herself up as her phone buzzed –

**So… Killian? Don’t think you’re getting away without filling me in on that one.**

She smiled. Ruby. She could wait until the morning.

Wednesday lunch is the first time she sees David again following his birthday celebrations. He wears one of the shirts she had bought him – of course he does.

They’re tucking into their usual when he brings up Killian. ‘Jones’ niece is doing better. They’re letting her home today.’

‘That’s brilliant news,’ she smiles. She wished she’d had his number these last few days to ask about how his family were doing.

‘Yeah, it really is. He said you two had talked about it the other night so I thought I’d pass on the news.’

‘Thank you.’

She’s lost in her thoughts then. Remembers Killian’s frustrations at feeling like he couldn’t help. Feeling powerless is something she has unfortunately experienced a little of in the last year. For someone who has become so used to organising and steering the course of things in her adult career it had thrown her for a loop.

It had terrified her to have to rely so much on others – on David and Mary Margaret and Ruby – to help see her through. She was slowly coming to realise that needing others wasn’t really a sign of weakness. That having people in your corner was sometimes all you needed to pull you through.

She’s fairly certain that simply talking to Killian the other night would have been all his brother had needed. She hopes Killian realises that.

‘So when are we going on our kayaking adventure?’ David grins. She wasn’t entirely sure what made her plump for the adventure day as part of his gift but it seemed to have gone down well.

‘You’re the one with a baby at home so you tell me and we’ll make it work.’

‘True,’ David acknowledges but she then sees mischief dance in his eyes and braces herself for the next comment. It isn’t what she expects, ‘but then I’m not the one with a Killian Jones to factor into events.’

David cannot tease someone without laughing at his own brilliance and now is no exception. Emma throws an onion ring at him. Throwing things at the Nolans seems to be becoming a regular occurrence

‘I’m not _with_ a Killian Jones,’ she huffed in frustration at the teasing. Which wasn’t a lie, they weren’t really anything yet. ‘Just because your bromance feels threatened.’

David’s face grew serious and for a split second she actually thought she had bizarrely hit a nerve. ‘True. I will fight any woman who tries to take him from me.’

‘Lunch is on you now, you idiot.’ She joked as she stood and slipped her arms into the sleeves of her coat. She had never been so glad that her hat – his hat – hadn’t made it out of her pocket. She’s fairly certain she wouldn’t have lived that one down.

‘Fair enough. I deserve that one.’

She tried to feign annoyance but couldn’t truly help the smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. ‘Was it worth it - your teasing?’

‘Oh, totally.’

The email is sitting there waiting for her upon her return to the office.

She’s kind of been waiting for him to show up at her house to be honest. Although she’s not entirely sure how her need for space and privacy would have dealt with that. She has an annoying feeling that his smile would have won her over.

She finds herself smiling before she has even opened it but that may have something to do with the title of the message – ‘An apology from Mr S**y Stubble

Yes, the idiot has actually starred out the word sexy. She was secretly grateful that the email wouldn’t be picked up by the ICT filtering system.

Swan,

Apologies for not being in touch sooner. I wish I could regale you with some dramatic tales as to the reason why. The simple truth is that I thought I was being rather slick the other night with the whole ‘I know where you live thing’ but the reality, I realised, is that I didn’t have your number.

So I have spent the last few days trying to figure out how to remedy that. (I almost asked Dave but wasn’t sure you would have wanted that?) Instead I have googled your good self to send you this email. Nice picture on the site by the way. I may make it my background.

I’m hoping you’re free over the weekend to squeeze in seeing your favourite Englishman.

Jones x

He really was an idiot.

(He’d put a kiss.)

He was still an idiot.

She saved the number he had added at the bottom of her phone and quickly typed out a response before her next meeting

_You should know that Hugh Laurie is my favourite Englishman_

The rest of her afternoon is spent organising the showcases for the new signing before she can turn her mind to the upcoming charity fundraiser.

She loses herself in the ins and outs of the project, smiling when she scrolls through some of the photographs the events team have asked her to choose from.

He finally replies as she’s shutting down for the day.

**Sorry, Swan. Long meeting**

**I will only allow myself to be topped by Sir David Attenborough**

**Or Liam**

**They’re your options**

She wanders out calling goodbye to her colleagues but her head is down and typing out a response at his ridiculousness.

_Liam then. Definitely Liam._

**Swan!**

_How’s your niece?_

**Much better thanks. Did Dave pass on the message?**

**He did. Thank you for that.**

She steps into her car and drives home feeling oddly comforted.

They organise to meet for drinks after work on Friday. He’s out of town for the weekend on some business but says he’s eager to see her before. If she allowed herself to be honest, then she kind of is too.

\---------

They text throughout the rest of the week. Their conversation sprawls across the days. Both committed in their responses but they’re seldom prompt. Work for Killian has suddenly become rather brutal thanks to the stupid ploys of another team’s lawyers. The player in question is nothing more than a kid and his agent has well and truly screwed him over. Killian aims to remedy that and will. It just may take a while.   

He learns that Emma doesn’t like the summer heat too much. That she’s insanely protective over her battered (his words) yellow VW. That she prefers onion rings to fries and believes hot chocolate with cinnamon and whipped cream to remedy most problems.

She’s also passionate. Amazingly so about the charity project she has helped kick-start whereby the players read to and with some of the local school children. When he googles the project, he’s more than a little impressed. He can’t help but note that many of the partner schools for the project are those in the most needy areas which is as it should be. He also feels it has something to do with Emma’s past and he marvels at the woman she has become.

He texts her Friday afternoon to ask if she’s be happier to go off the beaten track for their drink. He’s frustrated beyond belief with the antics pulled by some of his colleagues in the business and wants something a little quieter.

She agrees and he messages her the address.

He’s counting down the hours to being out of this place as well as to seeing her. As he’s making his way out of the foyer from his building a little before six he hears his name called and sighs. He’s done with this week. He’ll deal with it Monday.

He turns to see Robin heading towards him.

‘Tough week then, mate.’

Understatement of the century. ‘Something like that.’

Robin and he had met several years ago, not long after he had made the move from across the pond and he’s a true friend who has helped to make this foreign land feel a little like home. He’s the head coach for the team and not to be underestimated for his laid back style. He’s been just as riled by the whole ordeal surrounding the Mills lad to.

‘I just wanted to say all your hard work is appreciated this week, mate.’ Robin claps him on the back. ‘There’s a dinner invitation at our place should you want it? Roland misses you.’

‘Aye, it’s been a while since I’ve seen the little man,’ he clears his throat, ‘I can’t tonight though, mate.’

‘Getting ready for the conference?’

He scratches behind his ear, ‘Something like that.’

Robin’s known him far too long for that to slide. ‘You have a date,’ he announces smugly as he crosses his arms over his chest.

‘I do.’ There’s no sense in denying it.

Robin’s gaze settles on him. ‘You really like her.’

‘I do.’ No sense in denying that either.

‘Is she good enough for you?’

That earns a bark like laugh from Killian. He’s fairly certain there isn’t a man out there deserving of Emma Swan but he’ll endeavour to make himself worthy.

‘I think it’s the other way around mate,’ he laughs as he back away.

‘We’ll see!’ he hears as he pushes out into the cooling evening air.

When he pulls up to the bar, he makes her out ahead of him and easily catches up with her (he’s fairly certain it has something to do with the alarmingly tall shoes she has on).

‘Evening, love.’ He says as he sidles up alongside her.

‘Damn it, Jones. You scared the crap out of me!’ she says with a hand clutched over her chest.

‘Apologies. I don’t have the benefit of those lovely shoes to signal my approach.’

 ‘Trust me. There are very few benefits to these shoes come 6 o’clock on a Friday.’

‘Well I wouldn’t say there are no benefits…’ he smirks letting his eyes rake over her long legs. She may well be bundled up in a coat and scarf against the cold but her legs seem to go on forever reaching the hem of her coat.

‘You’re funny,’ she says giving him a droll look.

‘I aim to please,’ he shrugs as he hold the door open before them.

The bar is a personal favourite of his. It’s full of charm and warmth without being pretentious, managing to maintain an atmosphere without being overbearing.

‘This place is nice,’ Emma smiles. He’s glad she’s in agreement. ‘There’s a kind of homely feel if that makes sense?’

They make their way to the bar and Killian catches the eye of the bartender. ‘What can I get you?’ greets their server.

Killian gestures for Emma to place her order, ‘I’ll get a small glass of your house red.’

 ‘Usual?’ the guy nods towards Killian. Truth be told, he could rather do with a glass of rum after the week he’s had but he doesn’t like to have any when he’s driving. Not anymore.

‘Aye, thanks.’

Emma turns her gaze on him as they wait for their drinks. ‘The usual, huh? Come here a lot?’

He explains that it’s pretty close to his place and that he’s come to know the owner – a fellow Brit – fairly well. That Liam had first pulled him into the alcoholic comforts of The Scarlet Goat on a visit.

‘I told you your brother was a smart man,’ she gloats as he steers her towards a table in the corner.

‘You’re going to give me a complex,’ he moans as they sit. She pats him arm in a contrite show of affection.

‘So, where does the ‘Goat’ part of the name come from?’

Her laughter when he explains that Will had been deemed ‘goatish’ by a date he had failed to impress lifts his spirits more than he thinks is rightly should.

‘Goatish? What does that even mean? He’s hairy? Or prone to eating grass?’

‘Feel free to ask him yourself, love although he’ll probably tell you the same bullshit he told me about him being horny.’

She smirks as she sips her wine, ‘At least he has a decent sense of humour.’ And there’s something in the way she says it that imbues it with importance. He’s a little pained by what has happened to her that has made humour, laughter, a rarity in her life.

‘So,’ he takes a sip of his beer, and holds it out to her to clink against her glass, ‘to the end of the working week and our third date.’

‘Third?’

He nods.

‘I don’t remember you having asked me to attend the other two, mister.’ She shifts herself slightly in her seat to face him straight on. Her eyes fix on his but there’s steel to them now. ‘Nor should you think that it means you’re getting ‘third date’ treatment.’

Oh shit. He hadn’t meant it like that. Bloody hell.

\----------

If anyone had asked her, she would not admit to how much she had been looking forward to seeing him. If anyone asked her, she would not admit to the way in which she felt that little bit better when she had seen him. And she had taken a moment to appreciate him in his work attire. The man could wear a suit. That she might admit to.

And she’s enjoying his company, truly she is but the panic sets in as soon as the he makes the comment about it being the third date. She reverts to her default setting and throws up her walls. She can do the one and done kind of rendezvous no problem but he’d made her think this was different. She’s been made a fool of before and has no intention of letting herself be hurt again.

She can hear the edge in her tone when she calls him out on it. To his credit, he doesn’t look away. He swallows, visibly, before replying.

‘Emma, truly, I did not mean the comment to have those connotations. I merely meant that getting to spend time with you at Victor’s and then David’s get together,’ he shakes his head slightly with a faint smile on his face as if recalling something more comfortable than this moment, ‘well that time in your company meant more to me than almost any other ‘real’ dates I’ve been on lately.’

She has to look away then. She feels disbelief at his words but sees no lie in his eyes.

His voice is quiet when he continues and she’s glad she isn’t looking at him now because she feels the heat burn her cheeks at his words. ‘I’m not saying I wouldn’t like to share the ‘third date experience’ with you at some point, Emma, because I would. I’d happily wait to the thirtieth date though if that was what you wanted.’

‘Really?’

‘Really.’

She’s not quite sure what provokes her next words but they’re out before she can stop herself. ‘What if I said I’d prefer it if we were just friends?’ It’s ridiculous that she’s asking it. Knows herself that she wants to more than Killian Jones’ friend, yet she has to be _sure_.

‘I’d be disappointed because I would like to be more than your friend but I’d respect your choices and try to be grateful that I would still get to know you. I have no intentions of being with someone who doesn’t want me.’ He scratches behind his ear somewhat uncomfortably.

He means it.

He means it and it terrifies her.

What is she doing? She _does_ want him. She’s fairly certain of him (It’s _her_ she’s worried about.)

Words have never really been her strong suit when it comes to feelings of the heart and so, finding herself completely uncertain of how to find the words to justify her grilling of him she leans forward to kiss him. She knows she has caught him unaware and it’s a moment before he catches up. His hand cradles her cheek and his lips caress hers, turning the kiss into something softer than she had initially intended.

When they part his thumb finds its way to her chin and he tilts her gaze up to his. There’s a question in his eyes that he doesn’t ask but she finds she knows it anyway.

‘I’m sorry,’ she sighs. She is. She just can’t get this relationship thing right. She’s been too consumed by Neal, and then too aloof with every other boyfriend and then a damned fool with Neal the second time. 

‘Hey, it’s alright,’ he implores. ‘I’m just suddenly grateful you’re not another lawyer I have to come up against in the boardroom.’

It pulls a smile from her and she sees it, feels it in his body language and open gaze that he might not fully understand it but he’s not lying either.

They shift slightly further away from one another (although she had practically sat on his lap to kiss him) but remain tucked together. ‘I am sorry, though. I kind of grilled you there and it’s not,’ you, she wants to say. It’s not you. It’s him and me and I’m a mess, ‘not something that you deserved. I can be a handful.’

‘I don’t mind it,’ he shrugs.

‘Really? Plenty of men would disagree.’

‘Plenty of men are idiots then.’ The comment is casual and offhand. His beer bottle is half way to his lips and he doesn’t quite realise what he’s said. He hasn’t suggested in any way that Emma and her baggage may be the reason for any of what has happened.

She realises how good of a man she may have found and makes a promise to herself to not push him away out of fear.

Taking the time to observe him while he is quiet, she realises for the first time how tired he actually looks. She had gathered from their messages that work had been tough and it shows in the slight darkness smudged around his eyes and the heaviness that sits upon him.

She wants to ask if he’s okay because he looks tired. Wants to ask if he’s sleeping and looking after himself but she knows how she hates other people fussing over her and how the ‘you look tired’ comment always results in am ‘I’m now pissed off’ recipient. She settles on a safer option.

‘Hey, how’s your case going with the Mills lad? You find the loophole yet?’

He sighs and explains how the boy’s previous team are trying to prevent him playing for the first team for the remainder of the season due to some overlap with junior and senior contracts at his old team.

‘He’s only a lad really. Nineteen years old and he’s miles from home with a piece of work for an agent and an old club who should have his back after he came through their youth squad harming his career. They’re selfish.’ He pulls a hand through his hair and it sticks up every which way and yet it annoyingly works for him.

She hums in agreement, ‘You really care for this lad don’t you?’

‘He seems a good kid and I know what it’s like to be far from home. He should at least get to do the thing he loves.’

She finds herself pulling for this lad too. She too knows the feeling of being alone. She was lucky enough to eventually find David and his family but there were many years of loneliness before then. Everyone should have someone to believe in them and she feels proud of how hard Killian wants that for this lad.

‘Is he good?’

‘On the ice? He’s a bloody marvel. Robin’s itching to have him play. He’ll complement our attack perfectly.’ And lord, you can tell how much he loves the sport. His eyes light up and he shift further forward on his seat. She’s used to this after all, being David’s surrogate sister and Neal’s well…whatever that mess can be described as.

‘Maybe I should come see him play sometime then.’

‘If I can get him on the bloody ice.’

She reaches for his fingers and tangles them with her own, ‘When you get him on the ice, I’ll be there.’

This time he kisses her. She’s not complaining. They’re both grinning at one another when they part.

‘You looking forward to the conference this weekend?’

‘Not really at the moment, to be honest. In theory, it should be interesting but I’m pretty tired from this week and not really thrilled at a 6am start to get to the airport.’ She can almost see the tiredness wash over him again as he considers it.

‘Hey, it’s still New York though. Plenty to do at least if you catch some downtime.’ She says trying to cajole him.

His reply is quiet. ‘I’ve had my fill of that city.’

There’s a story there, she knows. It’s not for today though and it’s not for her to push. He can tell her in his own time. She can give him that. (She hopes he gives her that too.)

‘Well I intend to spend tomorrow doing laundry and cleaning the windows at my place so who’s the real winner here?’

He laughs and it reaches his eyes making them crinkle in the corners. ‘Trust me, I’d rather be doing your windows, love.’

‘Right, I’m storing that fact away for date number four.’

He smiles widely and his eyes search hers, waiting for her to take the lead. There’s a challenge in way his eyebrows raise and somehow his gaze makes her stomach swoop.

‘Killian Jones, would you go out with me again?’ She’s surprised by the confidence in her voice. It belies the butterflies in her stomach.

‘I’d like nothing more,’ he whispers and pushes a series of kisses of delicate kisses along her jaw until she giggles. Emma Swan. Giggling in a bar. She was right. Knowing Killian Jones could be fun.


	4. Chapter 4

The conference is actually surprisingly interesting but in a lull in events between the 3.30 and 4pm mark he feels his mind begin to drift. He’s mulling over the previous week again in his mind; the meetings, the phone calls, the paperwork when something in him shifts. He cogs in his mind whir into life and it is as if he has eureka moment regarding the Mills lad. He hastily fires off an email to Belle with his thoughts. Her reply is instant despite it being the weekend – _Jones, you may have it! First thing Monday. I’ve cleared the diary. We’ll crack this._ _-B_

He spends the hour and a half of the remaining session running on the adrenaline of his (possible) success.

As everybody files out at the end of the session he feels a hand on his arm. He expects it to be Jeff whom he had bumped into during the lunch break. A fellow sports lawyer he had gotten to know reasonably well on a professional level during his time in New York. In fact it had been Jeff who had put Killian’s name forward when the job came up with the soccer team in the city.

Having grown up loving and playing football in the UK, Killian had felt it was the perfect opportunity for him to work in the sport he loved the most. Then, well, Milah’s sodding husband had gone and put the brakes on all of that. He’d used his substantial influence to lean heavily on the powers that be. He’d had doors closed on him at every turn and found himself spiralling into a hole he wasn’t sure he could get out of. The sheer bloody stubbornness of his brother and a well-timed conversation with Robin had lead him to making the best decision of his life in quite some time and he’d made the move to Boston.

The hand on his arm didn’t, however, belong to Jeff. He looked up from the manicured nails to see a pretty brunette smiling at him.

‘Can I help you, lass?’

‘I’m Christina,’ she smiled extending out her hand. ‘I was wondering if you wanted to maybe get dinner later on?’

He had to admire her confidence. Her smile never faltering. And really, why should it? She was a beautiful, and clearly smart, woman. Why shouldn’t she feel assured in asking someone out?  The problem was that all Killian could think about was Emma’s smile and how she had been wronged so many times that she had lost some of the confidence in herself that this woman exuded.

‘I’m flattered you’ve asked but no thank you.’ He nods firmly to himself. Emma. That’s who he wants.

‘Girlfriend?’ She asks eyeing that lack of a ring on his finger.

He has no idea what they are. He clears his throat, ‘She’s the only woman I want to be eating my dinners with.’

‘Lucky girl,’ smiles this Christina as she turns to walk away.

He decides to walk back to his own hotel. He has mixed feelings about New York after all that had happened. He finds it doesn’t pain him as much as he thought it might to be back here. He also finds that it no longer feels like home.

He’s excited about the possible break through with the contracts and it’s _her_ he wants to call. He pulls his phone from the inside pocket of his suit as he gets into the elevator to take him up to his floor.

When he sees there’s a message from her he hastily taps in his pass code and finds himself smiling even at the most simple of messages.

_How was your day?_

**Pretty good. Can I call you?**

_Give me 5 minutes. Just sorting another load of laundry._

He changes into something more comfortable and flicks on the television in his room, hopping through the channels until he hits the sports news. He mutes the sound before calling her.

‘You weren’t kidding about the laundry day then?’ he says by way of greeting.

‘Ha, nope. I’m still in my sweat pants.’

He really can’t help it that he’s picturing a pair of sweats hanging dangerously low on her hips. She must read his silence correctly when she chuckles, ‘Gods, Killian. I said sweatpants not underwear.’

‘It’s a good picture either way.’

‘You’re an idiot,’ she replies but there’s affection in her tone. ‘How was the convention?

He explains about then fills her in on the Henry scenario. She asks questions and listens carefully to his responses. Her genuine investment in the situation brings him a sense of comfort that he hasn’t felt in a while.

‘Have you not left the house then?’

‘I went for a run this morning,’ there’s a pause before she adds, ‘I may have borrowed your hat again…’

‘May have?’ he feels his eyebrow arch and he wishes he could see the pretty blush from her embarrassment as she mumbles her response.

‘Well there’s no photographic proof so you can’t hold me to it.’

He kind of wishes he did have a photo of her in it. She looked damn cute. All wayward blonde hair flowing out from beneath the dark hat.

‘This hat is bringing me more trouble than it’s worth.’ She goes on to explain how Mary Margaret had called her out on it and he can’t help but admire the brunette’s sense of mischief. He’s gotten to know David’s wife fairly well over the course of the last two years. So much so that he would now count her as a friend in her own rights. She’s a thoroughly good person with a heart of gold but she’s not to be crossed and he’s grateful to have her in his life. (He’s glad Emma has her too.)

He’s been wanting to ask her about the whole ‘David’ situation for a while now. She’d sidestepped the fact that he had mentioned not telling David in the email and as close as he has grown to David, he’s Emma’s family and this will be her call. The discussion of Mary Margaret’s knowledge of their, well whatever it is they’re doing seems to be just about the closest he’ll come to her bringing it up so he takes the plunge.

‘Did I do the right thing in not mentioning things to David?’

It’s a moment before she answers and he briefly wonders if she’s going to find some way to wind up their call. ‘You did, thank you. I think Mary Margaret may have told him about the hat thing though. He made a comment at Wednesday lunch along those lines.’

He doesn’t quite know what to say. She’s not said anything he wasn’t expecting her to say but he can’t help the sinking feeling in his stomach. He’d like this _thing_ between them to be something she would someday be comfortable sharing with her loved ones.

Her sigh is audible. She must have read into his hesitance more than he’d thought. ‘I just don’t want the pressure and I wouldn’t know what to say…’ she trails off.

‘Aye,’ he forces a smile despite her being unable to see him, ‘the pair of them are irritatingly happy together and I get that they want that for you in a very enthusiastic manner at times.’

‘They want that for you too,’ she murmurs and he feels that’s as far as they’ll get on the subject. He told her he’ll go at her pace and he meant it – truly – but he’s only human and it does smart a little.

The idea that perhaps she wants to keep it private because she sees it as a fling. He wants more. He can’t quite explain it but in the short time he’s known her he finds himself wanting to know all there is to know about her. Even more surprising is that he wants her to known him just as well.

He changes the subject before he can overthink it too much. ‘Hmm, you can help me decide on my take out choice.’

‘What are you in the mood for?’ she asks and he can hear the ease slipping back in to their conversation.

‘Not sure what I’m in the mood for really.’

‘Where did you used to like when you lived there?’

‘There’s a deli not too far from here that do brilliant sandwiches. I used to go there on my lunch hour sometimes.’ His mind drifts to the day he had first entered the deli with her at his side. It feels like a different lifetime.

‘There you go then,’ Emma asserts pulling him back from his memories.

‘Well maybe I’ll just get room service.’ He’s not sure he can face going back there. A place that holds so many memories.

\---------

She can tell there’s a reason he doesn’t want to go back to the deli. Despite it being the first place he recalled when asked where he had liked to eat in the neighbourhood. She understands all too well about unwanted reminders of the past. And maybe it’s because she knows he’s a little confused by her reluctance to share their interactions with David that has her wanting to do something to bring a smile to his face.

She knows she made a poor excuse of explaining it but she doesn’t quite know how to verbalise the fact that she’s scared it will make it real and if it’s real it will be broken – _she’ll_ break it.

‘What was that deli called?’ It sounds good. I want to see if there’s one in Boston.’ It’s a lie. She’s fairly certain Killian would know if there was one where they lived but he seems to buy it. He gives her the name and she types it in to her MacBook and hits search. She grins in celebration - they’ve started doing delivery in the last six months by the looks of it.

‘Swan, are you still with me?’

‘I’m here,’ she grins, ‘So I kind of wanted surprise you but it would mean me hanging up and I don’t want to do that either.’

‘Surprise me?’

‘The deli started doing delivery a few months back. You can ring and it will be with you within the hour.’

‘Perfect. You’re a marvel.’ He has the luck of having the hotel phone in the room so he calls out his order while Emma waits on the line.

‘You didn’t want to hang up, huh?

She laughs at him and his swagger, ‘Don’t read too much into it.’ There’s no bite to her words though. She likes talking to him – that’s the reality of it.

‘So,’ she hears him clear his throat on the other end of the line, ‘I got asked out to dinner earlier.’

Her heart beats a little faster which is irrational. He’s telling her about it and ‘He’s ordering take out…’ She hadn’t quite realised she’s voiced the last part out loud until he’s responding.

‘Aye. She asked if I had a girlfriend…’ the question hangs between them. There it was. The unspoken comment. They’ve been on one date (or three if he had his way) and it seems a little soon for all of this but it’s Killian and she knows it could be something great between them if she lets it.

‘What was your answer?’

‘I said that you were the only person I wanted to eat my dinners with.’

He’s so good. ‘Good answer.’ It’s pretty much the perfect answer he could have given really. He’s not forced a label when she’s not ready but he’s managed to reassure her that it’s her he wants.

‘I didn’t want to assume that you and I were, well…together but I’d like to be,’ he continues.

‘Together?’

‘Together’

‘You’re the only person I want to eat my dinners with too.’

\---------

They find themselves in a routine where they talk every day and Emma finds herself looking forwards to their conversations. Sometimes it is a brief, snatched conversation when one of them is on their way to something or the other is getting home late, but it’s still _something_.

He wants to talk to her. Really talk to her and she realises as she curls up on her sofa that Neal had never really wanted to talk since they’d gotten back together. They talked, of course, but about the inconsequential, the day to day. When they did try to talk about the ‘big’ stuff, the heavier stuff it ended in one of two ways – make up sex or a night on the couch. She didn’t want to live that way again.

As deep as she had been in with Neal she has finally, slowly, painfully come to realise that she’s better off. They were never going to be right for one another (maybe they never were). For months after she’d walked in to find him having sex with another woman in their bed (Emma’s robe pooled around the woman’s thighs. Neal voice calling her, ‘Babe’.) she’d questioned every little thing about their relationship, about herself.

She’d kicked herself to the curb for going back there but he’d been her first in every sense of the word. The first to _choose_ her. To want her. Not out of obligation or some government funding. Just for her (or so she had though). Simply put, loneliness had hurt Emma Swan emotionally and physically from a young age and this charismatic, easy-going guy had swept her off her feet. Made her feel wanted and valued. He would always have that pull on her. He would always know just how to push her buttons.

And she hates him for how he humiliated her. Hates how that godforsaken recording had found its way online. Hates how her whole life crashing down before her became an online sensation overnight. Hates him for the lies and the deceit and for making her doubt herself.

His actions had distorted Emma’s view of what was true. About her. About her world.

Slowly, piece by piece she is coming to terms with it. She feels like she harbours less hatred towards him now than her friends do - Ruby and David are still gunning for blood and she’s fairly certain he would come off the worse were he ever to come across Mary-Margaret.  

Neil is selfish and self-indulgent. A misspent youth of taking what he wanted and having his father’s money to pick up the pieces had led him to feel invincible but Emma saw the insecurities behind it. It was how they had met after all. Him kicking it with the local misfits because he could. Playing at a life he would never truly understand. Both of the trying to erase their personal history and forge their own path.

She wonders how she must have appeared to Neal back then. Somehow beguiling for her life experiences beyond those he could comprehend. Looking back, it had never been built to last.. They fell hard and fast (Emma all the harder) and were inseparable. Trouble finding them and them seeking it out when it didn’t.

He never missed team practice though. Even then. He’d always begged her not to attend. How boring it would be for, how cold it would be sitting in the stands, how she wouldn’t understand it anyway.

Of course she’d gone.

To the credit of Emma’s impulsiveness as a teenager it was a few months into their escapades when she finally caved and snuck into one of his team’s training sessions. She’d tucked herself into the far corner of the stadium away from the other spectators and marvelled at just how good he was out on the ice. She’d felt so stupidly proud of him that she’s begun to make her way down the stands to surprise him at the end of the session when she saw an older man make his way over to Neil.

She’d felt puzzled when they began quite the heated conversation. It caught the attention of other spectators who were still in the stands. A few of the players still out on the ice frozen in place by the sudden change in atmosphere.

She watched as Neil tugged his helmet off then and turned his head up to the stands to look straight at her. The look he gave her stopped her in her tracks. He looked so disappointed.

The man (who she later came to realise was his father) practically dragged Neal away leaving her alone with the eyes of everyone else in the stadium upon her. She ran home with tears threatening to overspill and shut herself in her room. Stirred the beautiful home cooked meal made by David’s Mom around her plate and gave curt one-word responses to their enquiries about her day, her life, her wellbeing.

If only she could have seen then that they were the ones who truly valued her. Who believed in her for who she was. Who cared because she was Emma and not, as she feared, a charity project for their kindness.

It was a few days until she saw him again and she knew how unbearable she must have been for the Nolans. Inside she was already bracing herself for the blow when they no longer wanted her around.

She’d only have herself to blame this time.

When she did see Neal, it eased none of her concerns. She tried desperately to talk to him but he’d simply shrug her off. The only way they seemed to communicate anymore was through their bodies. They made out and more wherever they could find somewhere private enough and sometimes even when it wasn’t very private at all but she’d clung to him in any way that she could.

It all caught up with her a few weeks later.

She was late.

She was terrified.

She told Neal.

He told her his father would ‘take care of it.’

She finds herself tugging the blanket draped over her knees on her sofa around her more tightly. Even now, all these years later, she can still feel the sting of his betrayal.

She hadn’t been pregnant. She was, as it turns out, just late but it was the end of her contact with Neal.

It wasn’t quite the end of her doubting the Nolan’s devotion to her but the way Ruth had held her as she sobbed into her shirt, the way David had come home with bloodied knuckles and a black eye. She knew they were there for her if she let them in.

Neal had explained, years later when they’d met again, how he’d been terrified too. How his father had outright banned him from seeing her. How they couldn’t have been parents. That they’d been children themselves.

They were valid arguments and Emma had fallen for him all over again. His assertions that he was an adult now, at the peak of his career and could do what he wanted. That he was free to choose her now. And after years of lukewarm relationships in which she minimised her vulnerability being around him, with him, made her feel the same spark she’d has as a teenager.

Turned out to be the same story all over again.

Perhaps she should have heeded David’s warnings. Perhaps she would have always wondered ‘what if’ if she hadn’t found out for herself.

There was just something about Neal that had pulled her back. For all their differences in the hand they had been dealt in life, he was just as lost as she was. May be more so.

It was no excuse though. No excuse for his actions. No excuse to make a fool of her.

She’d been broken and she’s been slowly piecing herself back together. Her job, her friends, her house, her family. She finally accepted them as things which she deserved.

And talking to Killian, well it sometimes made her feel like she deserved that too. Sometimes, it outright terrified her.

She sensed enough from the way in which he would uncharacteristically clam up at times that he had his own demons too. He just seemed so much _better_ at this.

He seemed so at ease and able to speak of his feelings that it made her doubt her ability to be enough. Enough for him when he was so good to her.

She sighed as she saw his name flash up on her phone screen. She’d let her morose thoughts carry her too far and for a moment she considered not answering. Her finger hovered over the screen before she caved and swiped across.

He’s talking before she can get the phone to her ear.

‘There’s a woman ahead of me, Swan who is dressed in purple from head to toe. Shoes and all! Where does one even go to purchase purple loafers and tights?’

This wonderful idiot. His voice chasing away her sombre thought, she feels the way he makes her smile. She wants to try. She doesn’t want to turn away from _this_.

‘You’ve got to send me a picture of that,’ she chuckles.

She can make out the traffic noises in the background as he moves down the sidewalk. ‘If I bloody get arrested Swan, you’d better pay my bail.’

‘Oh really? And how would you pay me back?’

She hears his footsteps stop. ‘Bloody hell, Swan. You can’t say a thing like that to a man.’ His words warm her and she’s so glad she answered. ‘Not when I’m chasing down Mrs Purple. I feel like the paparazzi here.’

When the photograph comes through Emma laughs aloud in her empty house. It really is quite the ensemble. A second image flashes up and it’s a selfie of Killian giving her the thumbs up with the caption – ‘Mission complete’. His grin is childlike in its enthusiasm and she quickly saves it to her album.

‘So, tomorrow night?’ she asks.

‘I have a late meeting, Swan so it may scupper my original plans.’

Oh. She understands. Work is important and his job comes with strange hours at times.

‘What about if I swing by with pizza afterwards? Or you could come to me?’

‘Pizza would be good.’ Her heart lifts but somehow the thought of him in her house fills her with some sort of strange panic. ‘I’ll come to you. You’ve seen where I live after all.’

Baby steps. She can do this.

‘True, love.’

She knows it’s just a throwaway comment – the ‘love’. She’s not sure if it’s a British thing or a Killian thing but she assures herself she shouldn’t be reading in to it.

‘There’s a great pizza place by me,’ she explains, ‘I can pick some up on the way over.’

‘Well, I could let you do that but the best pizza place in Boston is a stone’s throw from me.’

‘Just wait until you taste Angelo’s.’

‘Is that so?’

‘A taste sensation.’

‘Swan, you have to stop saying things like that to me over the phone.’

She laughs. Again. She laughs a lot with him. It’s different. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow. Text me when you know a time.’

‘See you tomorrow, Emma.’

‘See you tomorrow, Killian.’


	5. Chapter 5

He’s missed her - truly missed her. Missed Emma Swan and all her brilliance. They hadn’t manged to see one another since their third(he remained adamant on the fact) date the previous Friday and though he’d enjoyed talking to her every day - the way in which they were slowly learning one another through shared anecdotes and conversation, the way in which he came to smile when he saw her name flash on his phone screen – it simply wasn’t the same as seeing her.

He’d messaged her as soon as he escaped from the late conference call with an overseas agent and he was fairly certain he had made the drive home in record time. He changed from his suit into a pair of jeans and a Henley and checked that the fridge (He’d never call it the yanks’ preferred ‘refrigerator’ as default) was stocked with beer.

When the door rang he all but ran to it, the scent of hot pizza hitting him as took in Emma before him.

‘Swan’

‘Jones’

They were doing that stupid standing still and smiling at one another thing again and neither had moved.

‘Come in,’ he said as he pulled the door further open and swept her inside.

‘Shall I put the pizza down in here?’ she said using the boxes to point towards the kitchen.

‘Sure.’

As soon as she’d placed them on the counter he pulled her in to a hug. He wants to tell her he’d missed her.

He doesn’t say it.

‘This is nice.’ Her voice is muffled in his shirt. Her breath hot against his chest.

It is nice. _More_ than nice.

There are two, enormous pizzas boxes on his side. ‘Just how much pizza are you planning on eating? We could feed most of the apartment block.’

‘You’ll be thanking me when you try it.’ She moves to open the boxes and he fetches a couple of plates down from the side. His kitchen is well stocked but not overly large and he likes the way they have to move in one another’s space as he gets glasses down.

‘So I wasn’t sure what you’d like or if you were a vegetarian or whatever so I got the Angelo’s special and a Hawaiian.’

He laughs as he looks at the pizzas before him, ‘Emma, you do realise neither of these are vegetarian pizzas?’

‘Well there’s not that much meat on the Hawaiian. I figured I could steal your ham.’

‘But the meat has touched it, so I can’t eat it.’

She whirls to face him then and the look of sheer horror on her face makes him crack. ‘Killian, I’m so sorry I didn’t rea-‘

He grabs her shoulders halting her frantic apology, ‘Emma, relax I’m kidding!’ He laughs, ‘I eat meat.’

She whacks him playfully (but still fairly hard) on the arm and he feels like he could get used to this.

‘You’re an idiot and I’m not giving you half of the special now.’

She’s kind of cute when she sulks. Her brows furrow and he wonders if she realises that her bottom lip pops out like a kid.

He leans down to kiss her.

‘You can’t kiss your way out of this,’ she mumbles against his lips as he moves to kiss her neck.

‘Oh really? I can’t?’

He’s always loved a challenge.

They get to the pizza about ten minutes later when he feels he has thoroughly proven her point and he has to admit it’s pretty good. The special in particular.

They sit on his couch with their feet up on the coffee table (Only after much cajoling on his behalf. Emma was convinced he actually lived somewhere else based on how immaculately tidy his apartment is.) and watch an old movie. He does give her the lion’s share of the pizza. Even so, he’ll have leftovers for days.

He loves just being in her company. It’s easy and it feels right although it doesn’t stop him from feeling slightly apprehensive. Emma, he thinks, is at ease and he finds himself loving how she shakes her head when she laughs at something. It’s an oddly endearing gesture. No, he’s apprehensive because he could really fall for her. He thinks he might be half way gone already.

She finishes off her beer and leans forward placing it on a coaster on the coffee table. Her jumper rides up as she moves revealing an expanse of creamy skin. He wants to reach out and press his palm to it. He doesn’t.

She must feel the heat of his gaze though because she turns to look at him and he sees something flash in her eyes before she’s turning and pressing a fierce kiss to his lips. He snakes his arms around her back, and pulls her further back onto the sofa with him. She moves to settle her legs either side of him and he deepens the kiss.

He adores having her in his lap but he’s also not sure if they’re _there_ yet and in a moment she’s about the get a very clear signal that he is.

He shifts slightly to try and lessen the contact and she pulls away enough for him to see her blush. He definitely hadn’t been too subtle after all.

She scoots back a little and he takes the opportunity to trace circles into the skin on her lower back.

‘I had a lovely time tonight, Killian.’

The uncertainty in her voice makes his chest ache. He knows she’s been hurt before and hurt badly but he had hoped that she’d be able to see how much he loves her company.

He pulls her hands from his shoulders and tangles his fingers with hers. ‘Emma, if I have made you uncertain of what a bloody brilliant time I’ve had tonight then I’m a sodding fool.’

‘You’re so…British,’ she responds as she fingers one of the charms around his neck. She does the thing again where she kind of shakes her head and he leans forward to kiss her softly.

‘I don’t,’ she falters, ‘I’m just not great at this.’ She gestures between them with her hand trying to convey her meaning.

‘This…’ he mimics her hand gesture making her grin, ‘This you are doing great at, love.’

‘Okay’

‘Okay’

\---------

She can’t quite remember a date that had felt so right. Sure, she panicked at different points in the evening (including his stupid faux-vegetarian antics) when he accidently calls her ‘love’ or when she’d seen that look in his eyes when he listened to her. A look that told her he was listening. Listening in a way that he would recall what she had said weeks maybe even months from now if she gave him the chance.

She dearly wanted to. She just couldn’t make the words come out of her moth so she’d kissed him senseless instead.

He’d told her he’d go at her pace and he’s true to his word as she finds herself pulling her bug up in the street outside her house. He’d asked her to let him know she was back safe and so she taps out a message to let him know she’s home.

She’s heard one of Mary-Margaret’s many monologues on love and romance running though her head on repeat on the drive back to hers. _I think really, when it comes down to it, you choose someone who can put a smile on your face even when you least feel like it. Someone who cares. Who cares about you and your needs. Cares whether they buy the kind of milk you like in the grocery store, cares whether your feet are cold, cares whether you get home safe or not._

A ripple of panic rips through her and she grips the steering wheel until her knuckles turn white.

Killian Jones _is_ that kind of guy.

She’s just not sure she can be that type of girl.

Despite his protestations, she knows she isn’t good at this. Her previous romantic entanglements are testament to that and she can hardly even tell him that she likes him yet alone the rest. He deserves that. He’s a good guy. The kind of guy a girl would be lucky to have and here she is panicking over the smallest things.

He should be with someone who’s less of a mess, less terrified of commitment, less closed off. She’d sworn to herself that she wouldn’t let herself and her heat be hurt in that way again and if, no _when_ , things go south with Killian at whatever point down the line she knows – knows enough already – that she’s not quite sure she’d really be the same again.

She finally moves inside and drags herself to bed. Her limbs and her heat feeling heavy.

They hadn’t really made plans for the weekend but when she misses his call late Saturday afternoon she doesn’t ring him back.

Her run that morning had done nothing to clear her head and try as she might she can’t quite quash the niggling thought lingering from last night that she’s probably better stopping things now before she’s in over her head.

It would have been different were it just a fling but it can’t be just an anything with him. The same reasoning echoes in her mind - he’s the guy you go all in with and she just _can’t_. She can’t risk her heart again – or his.

She’s seen that look in his eye a couple of times when he thinks she hasn’t been looking. The look that says he’s making plans. For some inexplicable reason, he feels that she could be the type of woman he wants to do that with.

Look at her life; she most definitely isn’t that girl.

Neal’s words about him and her not being the kind of people to marry and get a dog and play happy families float their way to the surface. He’d made it sound like an adventure for the two of them to take. Maybe she’s just meant to take it alone. She should just be grateful for what she has in her life and not push for more.

He doesn’t call again for the rest of the weekend and she can’t make up her mind how she feels about it. She goes to bed early Sunday night and sleep comes quickly thanks to the wine she’d drunk at dinner over at David and Mary Margaret’s. They didn’t comment but she knew she was poor company.  

When she wakes in the morning she’s a little surprised to find a message from him. It had come through late last night. A simple – **Goodnight, Swan** – but she still finds herself opening and rereading the message several times during the course of the morning.

She resolves not to reply. It’s too late to respond to his message, she reasons (What could she put? Thanks? I’m awake now?) and her head remains in a mess for the following two days. It will pass, she keeps telling herself.

When Ruby knocks on her door to ask if she’s free to take her lunch break she’s grateful of the distraction and all but slams the top of her MacBook down and shrugs out of her lab coat.

She thinks to bring up the forthcoming dinner and auction they’re to host for the charity project they’re running through the club hoping it will take her mind of things but it seems Ruby had other ideas.

‘Spill,’ the brunette demands fixing her with a stare.

‘There’s nothing to spill.’

‘Lie. Huge lie. You have that look you get when you’re overthinking something and if it were work you would have filled me in or rung David for a second opinion.’

Emma forces a huge mouthful of her pasta salad into her mouth to buy her some time before responding.

‘That’s right, girl. You take an extra moment to find your honesty with me.’ Ruby grins sipping her juice.

Emma nearly chokes on her food. ‘You don’t give up do you?’

‘Never’

‘I’ve kind of been seeing Killian. Killian Jones. The lawyer from –‘

‘I know who Killian is,’ Ruby states batting away her explanation. ‘I was also fairly certain something might be going on.’

What is it with her friends and their sixth sense?

‘You should see the way the two of you look at each other,’ Ruby smirks.

‘I don’t look.’

Ruby laughs so loudly heads turn in the cafeteria and Emma grabs hold of her to shush her. Ruby does, to her credit, look at least a little apologetic.

‘What’s happened to get you so worked up then? He seems like a pretty decent guy.’ Ruby asks and the enquiry is much gentler than the brazen front she generally presents to people. Ruby knows how to have a good time but she also knows how to be an excellent friend. She has helped Emma to move past the whole Neal debacle just as much as David and Mary Margaret.

‘I just…he’s great. Really kind of brilliant, but I don’t know if he thinks I’m something I’m not.’

‘What makes you think that?’

She’s not sure, really, which only serves to make the whole thing more pitiful.

‘You know, you deserve every good thing right, Emma?’ Ruby continues and Emma can only shrug. Does she? She doesn’t want to belittle the fact that she knows she has a good job, friends, family even, but when she looks back on her life she sees a litany of mistakes in her wake.

Her phone buzzes and she’s grateful of the distraction. It’s an image of a lunch box with two slices of leftover Angelo’s pizza in and the caption – **Jealous of my lunch, Swan? Even a vegetarian would be.**

She smiles. Of course he takes a lunch box to work. She’s also a little concerned that he still deems it edible all these days later.

‘Is that him?’

She nods.

‘If he makes you smile like that and he’s good to you then you don’t walk away,’ Ruby squeezes her shoulder as she makes to leave. ‘He’s a big boy, Emma. Let him make his own choices.’

‘Hey, Rubes!’ Emma calls to her as she walks away. ‘Thank you.’

Nervously chewing on her lower lip she types out her reply and hits send.


	6. Chapter 6

With the working week winding down to its final stages, Killian finds himself accepting Robin’s dinner invitation this time around. It really has been too long since he has seen little Roland and he’s all too happy to receive a home-cooked meal after a night of eating out with clients.

He finds himself able to relax over dinner despite having Roland practically sitting on his lap. Killian has become the boy’s favourite story teller over the past couple of years. He has always suspected it to have a little something to do with his accent matching his father’s but the boy insists that his stories are ‘remarkable.’

Describing stories as ‘remarkable’ when you’re five is what you get when Regina Mills is your stepmother. She’s a guarded woman. Alarmingly shrewd and not to be trifled with in the world of business but Killian had quickly noticed how much care and affection she feels for Robin and his lad so he endeavours to worm his way into her affection also.

He thinks he has, over the years, although it’s rather hard to tell. He knows the role she played in helping to secure him the move to the club following Robin’s appeal. Recognises in her that she knows a little of betrayal herself. Enough sense of empathy to invite Killian to the occasional dinner and some of Roland’s Little League games.

It’s when Roland has finally drifted off (and clearly his story telling can’t be that ‘remarkable’ if the lad has fallen asleep) that Regina comes in with his phone buzzing in hand.

‘It’s rung twice,’ she explains holding it out to him with an arched eyebrow. ‘Figured it might be important.

Emma.

He mumbles a quick thanks and takes the call as he slips past Regina and into the hallway.

‘Emma, lass? Is everything alright?’ Something had made her skittish after their last get together. He’d vowed not to push her but he also wasn’t about to give up. He’d spent the next few days second guessing it all and he’d been mighty relieved to hear back from her after his lunch box photo at the start of the week. Things still hadn’t quite returned to the ‘new normal’ they had carved out for themselves over the last few weeks of their acquaintance. Instead it had been replaced by emotional and literal distance.

They had yet to speak on the phone and he knew she was at the Thursday night game for her team.

He hears the shaky breath she exhales on the other end of the phone. ‘I only have a minute, I just…one of the players got injured. It…it’s bad and it just got to me I guess.’

‘Hey,’ he soothes. ‘Do you want to tell me about it?’

‘He took a bad hit and he was out cold for way longer than he should have been. His collar bone is pretty badly broken too.’

She’s quiet before she adds, ‘He has a family, Killian.’

‘I know, lass. He’s had the best care from you though and he’ll continue to get it at the hospital.’

‘You’re right. I know.’

‘Doesn’t make it any easier though does it?’

‘No.’

‘Do you need me to do anything?’ He asks feeling hopeless. He wants to be standing beside her enveloping her in a hug but he knows that’s impossible and he’s still not sure if it something she would want. He hadn’t dared ask why he had been given radio silence for a couple of days. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer if it would mean her retreating back in to herself.

‘Could you just stay on the line a minute?’

He can do that. ‘Aye.’

He hears her breaths start to become steadier. Feels his own heart rate slow down a little.

Suddenly there are background voices from her end of the line and she explains she has to go. He asks her to take care before she hangs up.

He wishes he could have offered her more and while he hates the circumstances of her call he’s selfishly glad he’s heard her voice.

Regina doesn’t comment when he heads back to the lounge and he’s grateful for it. Robin, unsurprisingly, has the sports news channel on and he sees them replay footage of the injury Emma had just rung to tell him about on the phone.

It looks pretty dreadful and he wishes he could look away when they continue to replay it in slow motion. He catches sight of Emma working on the injured players and it’s her strained face he focusses on as they carry him off on the stretcher.

‘Looks nasty. That’s David Nolan’s sister isn’t it?’ Robin asks casually.

‘Aye,’ he nods unable to take his eyes off the screen. Off her.

‘Emma,’ Regina asserts from beside him. Her eyes don’t leave the screen before them but it’s enough to make Killian well aware that she knows just who was calling before. ‘She’s making herself an excellent reputation in her field.’

In for a penny, in for a pound. ‘She’s bloody brilliant at her job.’

Regina does turn her gaze to him then and nods her head slightly. Regina knows all too well the details of the Neal situation with him having been a player at her club. There are many women out there whose pity Emma doesn’t want but he has no doubts it’s pity coming from Regina. More of a respect for how Emma had conducted herself throughout the sorry mess.

Killian feels like he has passed some sort of test when Regina  turns back to face the screen.

He sends Emma a message enquiring how things are going after he has bid his farewells for the night.

It’s not until much later that he is jolted awake from sleep by the vibration of his phone on his nightstand. (He wouldn’t tell her he’d altered the settings to make sure he would wake should she respond.)

_Better than initial fears with the concussion. Shoulder op to follow when stable._

**Glad to hear it, love.**

_Sorry. Did I wake you?_

He goes to type ‘no’ but then thinks that would be a fairly ridiculous lie. It’s 3am. There’s no reason he should be awake at this hour.

**It’s fine. I wanted to know how things were going.**

_Thank you for earlier. I panicked for a minute there._

**You’re allowed to. You care.**

He sees the three little dots appear and he can sense her hesitation. She doesn’t really send lengthy messages so whatever it is must have caused her to halt.

_I don’t suppose you still fancy trying to convince me your pizza spot is better than Angelo’s?_

He grins feeling hope swell in his chest.   **Tomorrow?**

_Tomorrow._

_Night Killian._

**_Night Emma._ **

\--------

She wasn’t entirely sure why she had called Killian immediately after the incident. David, a fellow team doctor, would surely have made more sense and yet it was Killian’s name she scrolled to and dialled. Then dialled again when he hadn’t picked up.

He calmed her almost instantly. Just hearing his voice and his concern was enough to halt the swelling fears within her chest. It grounded her although she was hesitant to truly admit it. It had been a tough evening and her emotions were all over the place. She reasoned that she probably would have called David but knew he and Mary-Margaret had friends over that evening - Emma having had to turn down the dinner invitation herself. That had probably made her instinctively go to Killian.

Probably.

It certainly couldn’t be used as the reason why she’d asked him over the following evening. _That_ was all her.

When she finally makes it to her bed, she slips into sleep far easier than she thought she would. The exhaustion of the night catching up with her as her head meets the pillow.

Despite the fact that she had had the day from hell the night before and that she vows to leave work early enough to make it home to shower and change before Killian arrives, she finds herself turning the key in the lock to the front door ten minutes before he is due to arrive.

So much for being able to freshen up.

She tidies a few things away in her lounge. Text books and the odd magazine. Killian’s place had been remarkably tidy and whilst her home is spotlessly clean it’s not always the neatest. Even after all this time she likes that she can have _things._ Things that are hers and occasionally she likes to leave them around the place to prove that point to herself.

He’s prompt and despite her expecting him, she jumps out of her skin when he knocks on the door. She goes to great and him and it’s something in his smile and the dip on his head that has her throwing her arms around him.

‘That smells good,’ she mumbles into his shirt.

‘Me or the pizza?’

‘Maybe a little of both.’

‘I can deal with that,’ he says as she lets him go and beckons him it. ‘It is, after all, the best pizza in town.’

He notes her work clothes and asks if she has only just got home. His voice is laced with concern knowing the type of day she’d had yesterday.

She tries to wave it off but she’s exhausted and knows she probably looks it. ‘Do you mind if I go and change? I’ll just be a minute.’

‘No problem, love.’ He says as he starts to busy himself with unpacking the food.

Upstairs, she moves to grab her go to ‘I’m ready for the weekend’ pair of leggings and an oversized sweater then stops herself. Killian is downstairs looking, well, as he does and she chews her lip wondering if she should make more of an effort.

Glancing up she catches sight of herself in the mirror and sees the tiredness clinging to her features. A nice shirt won’t change the fact that she looks ready to hit the pillow. She goes for the leggings and sweatshirt looping her hair up in to a bun atop her head as she pads back downstairs.

He’s acquainted himself with her kitchen and plated her up some pizza. There’s also an unopened bottle of wine on the counter and two empty glasses alongside to full ones of water.

‘You’ve been busy,’ she remarks from where she leans on the door frame.

‘I didn’t want to pry but I thought I’d save you a job.’

‘Thank you,’ she grins reaching for the water on the side.

‘I bought wine but thought you might rather save that for another time when you-‘

‘-don’t look like the walking dead.’ She finishes.

He laughs but reaches out to lift up her chin so she’s looking him straight in the eyes.

‘You look beautiful, Emma. You always do. Even when you’re tired.’

She wants desperately to look away because she doesn’t quite know what to do when he speaks to her, compliments her, in this way so earnestly.

‘You’ve already bought me pizza, Jones. You don’t need to worm your way into my affections any more.’

He raises his eyebrows at her, understanding she’s deflecting but not pushing it.

‘Next time for the wine,’ she says brushing past him to put it in the fridge.

‘Next time,’ he agrees. She does want a next time with him and her in her home. Spending time with him is nice and she’s doing her best to follow Ruby’s advice. He’s a good man who makes her happy.

She’s trying not to mess it up.

The pizza is annoyingly good and he knows it from the smirk on his face. Even the vegetarian option he brought is mouth-watering and she lets herself wonder if it will become some sort of long running joke between the two of them.

‘You’re shorter than you are in your shoes,’ he remarks half way through the movie.

She laughs and turns from where she is tucked into his side to look at him. ‘And this is why you’re left in charge of the big decisions at work. All that brain power.’

‘I…you know what I mean.’

‘I do. I’m shorter than I am in my shoes.’

He pinches her side lightly to make her squirm. ‘What I’m trying to say if you’d stop mocking me, is that I hadn’t realised our height difference before until we were standing in the kitchen.’

‘I’m not _that_ much shorter than you,’ she huffs. Even at this she doesn’t like to lose.

‘Oh, aye. We’re practically twins.’

‘Shut it, you or I’ll make you sit on the floor.’

‘So long as I’m in your company, Swan I can’t find it in me to care.’

She shoves him them and it is far from hard enough to make him roll off the sofa and onto the floor but he does so with great theatrics. She laughs and opens her mouth to call him an idiot only to find his arms snaking up to pull her down on top of him.

She squeals in protest but suddenly finds no reason to complain when she realises that she is now lying on top of him in the gap between her sofa and the coffee table. She feels his chest rise and fall beneath her as he glances towards her lips.

He hesitates and she knows why. She’s fairly certain she’s sent a few mixed messages this week. Her hands travel up his torso to frame his face and she leans down to kiss him.

His arms loop around her to tug her closer and her she suddenly feels more alive than she has done in the last twenty four hours. She deepens the kiss wanting more and he’s right there with her.

It’s only when he tries to roll them so that he can pin her body to the floor that their kiss breaks. There isn’t enough room between the sofa and the table and he ends up whacking his head off the arm of the sofa. Emma’s laughing when she moves to sooth it with her hand. Their limbs are still entwined and she finds her face inches from his.

He’s flushed, whether from their kiss or embarrassment at trying to take out her couch she isn’t sure, but he’s pretty adorable. This man before her who has brought her dinner and told her she’s beautiful and gets embarrassed far more easily than he would care to admit. She suddenly can’t help but say the words on her mind -

‘I like you.’

He looks at her like she has said something poetic.

‘It’s a good job since I like you too.’

Her heart swoops in a way she almost doesn’t want it to but then he kisses again – a soft, gentle thing – and her insecurities are quelled. For now.

‘Come on,’ he says pulling her up, ‘before you blame me for giving you cramp.’

‘You just need to stretch your back out old man.’

‘You’ve spent too much time with me if you’re teasing people about their age.’

‘I’ve learned from the best,’ she shrugs as she collects their plates and puts them in the sink. When she comes back to the couch she curls into his side and finds she no longer has any idea what is happening in the movie they’re watching.

She finds she doesn’t care.

\--------

It’s still not late by the time the film they’d had on finishes. It hadn’t been thrilling but having missed the better part of ten minutes while they were essentially making out on the floor like teenagers had led to him making up elaborate stories about what they had missed. He is, in Roland’s words, a ‘remarkable’ story teller after all.

Emma must have fallen asleep at some point in the last few minutes and he cards his fingers through the hairs which have strayed from her bun. He doesn’t want to wake her but she’ll be much comfier in her bed and it’s a game day for him tomorrow.

‘Emma, love,’ he whispers as he shifts slightly beneath her. She stirs slightly but keeps her eyes closed. ‘We need to get you to bed. You’ll regret it if you sleep here.’

‘You’re a pretty good pillow.’ She grumbles tiredly.

‘And as much as I would like to remain that way, I have the game tomorrow.’

That rouses her enough to stand as she wraps the blanket from the back of the couch around her and stands as he does.

She looks up at him through sleep eyes before pressing a kiss to his mouth.

‘Let me know how you get on with the game. Sorry if I wasn’t thrilling company tonight.’

‘You’re the only woman I want to eat my dinners with.’

There’s an eye roll in there but she can’t disguise the smile the graces her face.

‘Night, Emma.’

‘Night, Killian.’

He’s at his car when she calls out to him –

‘Let me know you’re home safe.’

‘Aye, aye Captain.’ He probably shouldn’t have saluted her knowing she’ll mock him for it at some point but she’d asked him to let her know he was home safe and he just felt so damn pleased about it.

She cares.

The game the following day is a success with the team beating local rivals 4-2. He’d made sure to have Henry Mills sitting right behind Robin so he’d make it on the television footage. It was a cheap shot at one-upmanship against his former club but they needed to know that they had lost this one.

Within a couple of weeks he’d be on the ice for them, finally playing for a team where he was valued.

He sees a message from Emma at half time commenting on the game and it pleases him to no end that she’s watching the game.

They slip into a similar routine to before and he’s pleased one evening when she asks him to stay. There’s still a part of him that wishes to know exactly what had made her falter but he’s too selfish to ruin their seeming happiness.

The next few weeks are wonderfully spent getting to know every part of one another. He’s in over his head he realises but there are times – most of the time really – when he feels like she is right there with him.

Their relationship is still a secret of sorts,  and it frustrates him to no end. He’s worried she’s using it as a safety blanket of sorts should she need to make a quick escape. He’s starting to feel guilty about lying to David when he says he can’t make their morning run because he’s going into the office for an hour at the weekend when the real reason is that he doesn’t want to leave his bed when Emma is beside him.

He resolves to ask her about it next time they see one another in person.

When he hears the knock on his apartment door late one Tuesday night he isn’t expecting Emma Swan to be standing on the other side of it.

He certainly isn’t expecting her to be holding back tears.

‘Neal,’ she chokes out trying desperately to hold in the tears. He pulls her into his arms and closes the door behind them.


	7. Chapter 7

He can feel the anger course through him at the mention of his name. He has to force himself to take a couple of steadying breaths. Emma doesn’t need his anger right now. She needs him to hold her, to comfort her (‘to love her’ a part of his mind acknowledges) and he’ll do anything he can to support her.

It’s a while before she speaks. He’d shuffled them over to the couch in his apartment at some point but she hasn’t moved from his embrace. Nor has she cried.

‘He rang me,’ she begins and she speaks so quietly he dips his head further into the crook of her neck to hear her. ‘He rang me and I answered without looking at who it was. I was tidying up and I wasn’t thinking and I just answered hoping it would be you.’

His heart clenches and he pulls himself even closer to her. He dearly wishes it had been him on the other end of the line.

‘I don’t…he hasn’t spoken to me _once_ since the day I collected my things. Not once.’ The anger and the hurt in her voice pain him but he feels she needs to say this. To get it out. He’s hoping it will help him to understand too because for all he knows of the events from being David’s friend and colleague and it being a publicised affair, he doesn’t know Emma’s story. The one he truly yearns to know.  

‘He was drunk, or at least half way there.’

She shifts against him then. Holds where his hands meet over her stomach with her own. Holding him closer to her.

‘He said he missed me.’

Killian’s grateful that she can’t see the expression on his face from her position.

‘It’s a lie.’ She asserts.

_I know_ , he thinks.

‘He’s just lonely and drunk. It’s not me he misses at all but someone stupid enough to blindly be there for him.’

He hates, _hates_ that Neal makes her doubt herself all over again. He holds one of the smartest, wittiest and most independent women out there in his arms but she can never see any of her brilliance when it comes to Neal.

‘You’re not stupid, Emma. You will never be stupid. He was a bloody fool who didn’t know what a gift he had when you gave him your heart.’

He presses a kiss to her temple hoping and willing that she feels how much she has come to mean to him.

‘I told him not to call me.’

‘That’s…that’s good.’ He’s not sure whether he has a right to ask but he doesn’t want a repeat of this for Emma and so he asks anyhow. ‘Do you think you should change your number? Or block his?’

‘No.’ His heart sinks a little and despite it all he can’t help but feel jealousy creep under his skin. He doesn’t quite know what to say that won’t come out sounding wrong or selfish and so he stays quiet.

They sit in silence steadied by each other’s breaths. It’s Emma who speaks after a few minutes. He feels the vibration of it beneath his palms. ‘I’ll block his number if he tries again.’

‘Okay, well that’s good too.’ He wishes it wouldn’t have to happen again to ensure that he can no longer contact her. He wishes this to be the last of his hold over her.

‘Can I stay?’ she asks hesitantly.

He wants to say ‘always’. That he would be a happy man to always have her at his side but it’s not the time.

‘Of course.’ He presses another kiss to her hair.

He loves her.

He wakes at some point during the night to realise that Emma is no longer beside him. The duvet is thrown back on her side but she is nowhere to be seen. He blinks as he flicks on the bedside lamp before making his way into the lounge.  
  
Realistically he knew she'd be in there but he still feels the relief of seeing her wash over him. She turns around from the sink with a glass of water in hand and smiles tiredly when she sees him.   
  
'Hey. Did I wake you?'  
  
'It's no worry.'  
  
He pads over to her to get his own glass of water. If she's up, he's up. She's perched herself on a stool by the counter and he thumbs the hem of her ( _his_ ) t shirt.   
  
'My clothes look good on you.'  
  
She hums in acknowledgment and he's glad to see she's smiling. Whatever had woken her doesn't seem to have left a scar.  
  
'Perhaps we don't let Mary Margaret see you like this though, aye? My beanie hat I can deal with but the teasing for this…'  
  
'Very smart of you.'  
  
She leans forward into his chest and he pulls her closer with his free hand.   
  
'I haven't had a dream about him in so long. I guess I should have expected it after tonight.'  
  
'Aye, sometimes sleep can be a torment when memories are brought up.'   
  
He feels her pull back to look at him and sees the question in her gaze. He will never understand exactly how she feels regarding Neal in the way that nobody else can if it didn't happen to them, but they are more alike perhaps than either of them truly know. 

  
And he knows all too well how it feels to have your heart betrayed. To be left feeling humiliated and uncertain of everything you thought to be true.  
  
'Her name was Milah,' he says not really knowing where else to begin. It's been a long time, since before his move here, that he's told this story and even then he'd only ever spoken to Robin and Liam about it openly.  
  
He finds telling Emma easier than he thought. It stings, the memory of it all, but it won't leave a lasting mark.   
  
She holds his hand throughout but doesn't comment. Listens as he explains how he had fallen head over heels for her in his final year of university. If he closes his eyes he can still picture the day they met.   
  
She wasn't wearing a ring that day but he can't honestly swear that his actions would have been any different. She was smart and witty and beautiful and he fell hard. When they would go out he never questioned how far they would stray from their neighbourhood. Always just assumed that the places she chose were a sign of her sophistication and good taste. He didn't realise it was a sign of her infidelity until he'd already declared his love for her.   
  
Her husband was a powerful  but unloving man. Cold hearted towards a woman so full of life. Liam put two and two together in the end when Killian repeatedly made excuses for not bringing her to visit or for her being out of town when Liam and Elsa were stateside.   
  
He told Killian to end it. It was one of the few times he had heard genuine anger come from his brother. It had hurt. Liam was all about 'Good Form' and so was Killian, but he couldn't rightly see how leaving the woman he loved to a loveless marriage was particularly good either.  
  
'You need to end it,' Liam had asserted and there was no room for argument in his tone, 'and if you can't do that then she needs to end it with her husband - _now_.'

  
'What?'  
  
'Killian, you are throwing your life away. For three years you have been living a life that isn't real. If she loves you she needs to leave him. She needs to leave him and be with you so you can live your life.'  
  
He'd mulled Liam's words over and over in his mind. Why _couldn’t_ she leave him? She'd told Killian on so any occasions how different her life would be if she ever did. She was wistful, hopeful. She had never actually mentioned leaving him as an actuality though. Killian, though, was now in a different position now to the one he had been in when they had met.  
  
He wasn't a student anymore and he had prospects at work. He could provide for them both until Milah chose a path for herself. She was so bright she could do whatever she wanted. He told her so all the time but she just waved him off as if he had to say it.   
  
He'd told her he wanted a life with her, with them, together the next night they spent together. Promised her that he would be by her side forever. All she had to do was leave her husband. She could be happy if she chose them. Chose him. Chose her own happiness.  
  
They had fought - bitterly. He didn't understand where she was coming from. How could she say she wanted to be with him and stay with somebody else? How would they ever marry? Start a family?   
  
The truth had come out then amidst tears and anger.   
  
'You can't give me a life where I can be free!'   
  
'And exactly how are you free now? Stuck in a loveless marriage?'   
  
'I can do as I please and be with who I please so long as I turn up to events on his arm. I can live the life I want to. He knows about us, you know?'  
  
It had hit Killian like a tonne of bricks. He knows? How can he know and there not have been repercussions? How can he know and be happy to share a woman such as Milah?  
  
'Milah, I don't understand.' He'd pulled her into his arms. Willed her to look at him. ‘What are you saying?’  
  
'He knows about you. He said I could…I could have you so long as I was discrete and nothing was too serious. He only cares for appearances.' And she'd moved to caress his cheeks as if it made it all okay.  
  
Her touch had burned him. Everything they had was slipping away from him and he didn’t know what to hold on to to prevent it.  'So long as it wasn't _serious_? Milah, we love each other.' The anger and the pain forming in hot tears streaking down his face.  
  
'Killian, I _can't_ be with you. Not in that way.'  
  
'You can but you won't.' As he said the words he realised the truth of it. Liam had been right. He'd been living a lie. It hadn't been real. When it came down to it she was too scared to leave her life. It wasn’t enough. _He_ wasn’t enough.  
  
He'd broken down then. The disbelief knocking the wind out of him and he remembers all too well how he fallen to his knees and staring unknowingly into a future he couldn’t fathom. She’d said something but he couldn’t hear it over the raging numbness seeping through his bones. He remembered her leaving and couldn’t find the strength to move. Couldn’t process how to move forwards from this point.  
  
Emma inched her stool closer to his and he pulled her to his side.  
  
'It still hurts,' he offers quietly. It does, he can’t deny it. Losing her would always have hurt but the manner in which it happened will always sting.   
  
'Did you ever see her again?'  
  
'No. Not really. I drunk myself into a stupor for the best part of a week. Against my better judgement I rang her repeatedly but she never answered. I still loved her but I wanted answers more than anything and so I found out where she and he husband lived and drove over there.'  
  
He pauses knowing what is to come next. It's not a tale he's proud of.  
  
'They had a doorman, or some sort of equivalent of it. A doorman who refused me entry. He told me in no uncertain terms that Robert Gold would make my life a misery should I try to contact them again.'

Emma looks up then. _Robert Gold?_ People know of Robert Gold and of his substantial power and misdeeds in the business world. She knows enough of his misdeeds from the newspapers. She hadn’t realised that was whose wife Killian had been involved with.

‘Killian,’ she breathes reaching to cradle his face in her hands. ‘What happened?’

He can’t quite meet her eyes as he continues. ‘I didn’t heed his warning, of course. I found Milah dining at one of our spots and she was alone, or so I thought. I was denied entry to the restaurant by a couple of Gold’s lackeys who appeared. They roughed me up a little and sent me on my way.’

He reaches for his water on the counter and takes a few sips to steady himself. ‘I shouldn’t have gotten into the car. I’d already had a couple of stiff drinks, not enough to be over the limit, but coupled with the bloody mess I was in I should have known better.’

He’ll never quite move past his own stupidity that night; forget Milah, forget her husband - _he_ had made that choice. When he finds the words to tell Emma that he’d swerved at the final minute to prevent a head on collision with another car he can’t stop the tears that come to his eyes. He’d hit a tree at speed and his hand had been trapped by the crumpled steering wheel. A broken rib had punctured his lung. The doctors told him he was lucky to be alive.

He’d awoken a few days later to find Liam asleep beside his bed and a sense of self-loathing lodged in his chest alongside the various tubes helping him to breathe.

‘He saved me.’ He sighs. ‘I owed him everything. Again.’

‘He’s your family.’ He’ll be forever grateful to the way Emma softly caresses the scars that tangle around his left wrist and forearm.

‘Aye. He stayed here in America for two weeks. It was his whole leave from the Navy before he was reporting back for duty. Two weeks when he should have been home with his new wife and instead he was taking care of his wayward brother.’ He runs a hand through his hair.

‘Did he help you to move from New York to here?’

‘He suggested I move home actually but that felt like running away and I didn’t want to take further advantage of Liam and Elsa’s kindness. I felt I had a point to prove.’

‘I get that.’

He thinks she might be one of the few people who actually do.

‘I…well at the time it was all looking good for me to move to work for the soccer team in the city. It was my dream job. The sport I adored most doing the job I thrived on. Gold, of course, put a stop to all of that. Connections in all sorts of places that one.’

He watches Emma brow furrow. ‘How is that right?’

‘Well it wasn’t, but then neither was sleeping with his wife.’ He shrugs. He loathes Robert Gold but he’d come to terms with his own role in events.

‘I’d known Robin for years. I was a mess at the time but he knew me beyond that, knew I was damn good at my job and persuaded the board to give me a shot. The move was just what I needed.’

He downs the rest of his water and suddenly feels exhausted from breathing life to the ghosts of his past. Emma presses a kiss to the hand still held in her own. He had meant to comfort her by his admissions. To assure her that we all have demons. Now he finds himself feeling a little selfish that she is now trying to assuage his worries.

Perhaps that’s how it works when two people are truly together. A team.

‘Thank you for telling me.’

She squeezes his hand a little tighter and the pressure on his chest eases somewhat.

‘Ready for bed?’

‘Lead the way.’

His alarm rings far before feels properly rested after the night they had had. He eases himself from the bed and goes to put the shower on for Emma. It’s earlier than he’s used to given the fact that Emma had turned up in jeans and a t-shirt to his place last night and he needs to drop her back to her house before work.

The coffee machine comes the life and he feels like he may be in need of a few of them today. When Emma calls that she’s out of the shower he grabs extra towels for himself from the closet smiling at the glimpse he catches of her in his towel.

The circumstances aren’t great but he could get used to this kind of morning routine.

When he’s suited for work he swings into the kitchen to find some toast waiting for him and a cup of coffee how he likes it.

‘Thanks, Swan.’

‘No problem.’ She leans up to press a swift kiss to his check. ‘Good morning.’

‘Good morning to you too.’

They’re both shattered but he likes this. Her in his home and making him breakfast.

‘Toast is about as far as my breakfast expertise go I’m afraid.’

‘It’s perfect’

‘It’s toast, Killian.’

‘But made by your fine hand.’

She giggles but looks almost ashamed that she laughs at such sappiness. They finish up their coffee and make their way down to his car. He calls good morning to his new neighbour who had moved in over the weekend who seems to be coming back from a morning run.

He feels more like he’s been run over this morning. He’s fairly certain he can pull off the rugged charm look for a day. It’ll have to do.

He pulls up to Emma’s place and she looks hesitant when she moves to speak. ‘Thank you again for last night.’ They hadn’t really mentioned anything that had happened the previous night this morning. He wanted to ask if she felt any better, any less hurt but he decided to follow her lead. ‘I just panicked and you were the person I wanted to see. I hope that’s okay. I know I sort of ambushed you.’

‘You can ambush me anytime, love.’ His words are light but his tone is serious.

She searches his eyes for something but he’s not sure what.

She must find it.

‘Okay.’

‘Okay.’

She reaches awkwardly over to him in the car and kisses him soundly. ‘Thank you. I’ll see you on Friday.’

‘Aye.’

He drives away and he can’t stop himself from hoping that she won’t pull away from him again.

\--------

To say she feels all over the place would be somewhat of an understatement. In between work with the players she finds herself continuously glaring at her phone willing it not to ring. She contemplates Killian’s suggestion to block Neal’s number. It’s a decision that had never been an issue before because she truly thought she would never hear from him.

She doesn’t think she will now despite his claims that he missed her. He didn’t. He doesn’t. He was lonely and missed not being alone. It wasn’t Emma that he was missing.

She notices the angry half-moons blemishing her palms from where her clenched fists have been. Perhaps she should just block the number. Make the decision. It somehow feels like a show of weakness admitting that she struggles to deal with him. She _can_ do it. She did yesterday.

She’d been shocked, taken aback when it was his voice and not Killian’s on the end of the line but she had recovered enough to speak her mind. To tell him that she wanted nothing to do with him.

It had shaken her. Shaken the foundations of the walls she had erected to keep out the pain he had caused.

When she’d hung up she’d struggled to stand, her vision swimming and her breathing coming too quick, too shallow to be of any benefit. Memories of that night hitting her like the walls of a damn breaking. That night, the video, the god damn media camped outside David and Mary-Margaret’s house.

She’d found herself in the car and on the way to Killian’s before she really knew where she was driving.

She needed him in that moment whether she was truly willing to acknowledge it or not. She’d needed the support and the comfort and the acceptance.

Her heart clenches at the memory of him sharing his own demons with her. He’d trusted her with his own insecurities as she had him. How he’d relived those painful memories to let her know she wasn’t alone. She still can’t quite comprehend how he is so understanding when she hasn’t yet _really_ told him of her and Neal’s story. He knows of his betrayal, of course.

Everyone does.

He knows that it was the second time Neal had let her down. He doesn’t know the details. He’s patient with her in a way Emma’s not sure she deserves. When she couldn’t find the words last night he hadn’t pushed her and Emma wonders how much it is because he had promised to go at her pace and how much is because he sees more of her than almost anyone else. He knows her better than almost anyone without her having to say anything at all.

She’s not quite sure what to do with that. Is this how it should be? A healthy relationship?

He’d sent her a few messages during the course of the morning. Daft, inconsequential things that brought a smile to her face when she felt like doing anything but.

She makes a decision there and then in the moment and swiftly messages Mary Margaret to ask if she and Leo would like to meet her and David for Wednesday lunch.

The reply comes quick to confirm that they would love to.

Mary Margaret never comes to Wednesday lunch. Truthfully, she is normally tied up at school where a lunch hour is more like fifteen minutes to inhale your food, but even in the school holidays she never attends. It’s Emma and David’s thing.

She knows the alarm bells will be going off for Mary Margaret and tries to assuage her fears with a breezy reply.

_Looking forward to Leo cuddles! See you soon._

Judging from the hushed conversation the Nolan’s are having when she arrives, she doubts her message worked.

‘Emma! Thank you so much for the invite,’ Mary Margaret enthuses as she stands up to pull her into a hug.

‘No problem. I missed this little guy.’ She leans over to brush a hand over Leo’s head where he sleeps against David’s chest.

‘So I’m just an added extra?’

‘If lunch is on me will that make up for it?’

‘As long as I get a cookie to take home thrown in.’ Mary Margaret proffers her hand across the table to shake on their nonsensical deal.

Emma takes her hand. ‘Done’

The waitress takes their order and she looks up to see the two of them looking at her expectantly. Of course they know something is up. She looks exhausted and she’s practically sitting on her hands to stop herself from fidgeting.

She wants to tell them but they also deserve to know. They have supported her and helped her so much through the whole ordeal that she doesn’t want to keep things from them.

‘Neal called me,’ she blurts out unsure of where to begin.

‘He WHAT?’ David’s raised voice causes heads to turn in the diner and they wait a minute until normal service resumes and people return to their conversations.

Mary Margaret squeezes David’s forearm, ‘David, let Emma tell us.’

She strokes her son’s back and David visibly makes an effort to calm. Emma notes that Mary Margaret makes no move to take hold of her son herself. Knowing full well that David will have to rein in his emotions if he doesn’t want to wake his sleeping boy.

Emma swallows and continues. ‘He called and I accidently picked up thinking it was someone else.’ She shrugs and shakes her head. Talking about it now is harder than she thought.

‘Did he say why he called?’ Mary Margaret asks with concern on her face. ‘He hasn’t called before has he?’

‘No, no. This was the only contact he’s tried to make.  He tried to say she he missed me and he was sorry.’

David looks ready to burst but doesn’t speak.

‘He may be sorry but he doesn’t miss me. He rang because he was lonely and drunk. I know that but it just…’ It hurt.

‘Are you okay?’ Mary Margaret’s hand has reached across the table to where Emma’s are now clenched.

She nods. ‘I…I’m better now.’ She takes a breath and looks down at the table. ‘I went to Killian’s and that helped. I talked to him a little and he took care of me, I guess.’

‘Good, that’s good.’ David speaks.

She lifts her head to eye the two of them expecting to see hurt or anger or confusion regarding her confession over Killian. She finds none of them.

‘I wasn’t trying to keep it from you or anything,’ she offers lamely.

‘Emma, it’s fine.’ David asserts. ‘We’re not concerned about that. Killian is a good guy and if he’s taking care of you then that’s all we would want.’

‘Okay,’ she nods feeling weight lifting from her shoulders. She hadn’t realised she had wanted their approval so much. She’s also amazed that they haven’t made more of this. She’d expected fuss and fanfare but they just seem fairly happy for her. She suspects they have already had (at Mary Margaret’s insistence) a conversation between them regarding how to react. It would be a typically Nolan move but one she appreciates nonetheless.

‘Emma, I think you should consider a new number or blocking him.’

She shakes her head. No wonder he and Killian get along so well. ‘David, I don’t think he’ll contact me again and I don’t want the hassle of changing my number for him.’

‘What’s not to say when he has a few drinks again that he won’t call? You don’t need that in your life.’ David hands Leo to Mary Margaret and Emma knows he means business. ‘I’m proud of you for how you’ve handled it but it’s still got to you. It would get to anyone and that man is a thoughtless bastard. He’ll ring again if he fancies it.’

‘I can handle it,’ she feels her shoulders tense. She knows David has a point but she’s done playing the victim to Neal. ‘This is my call, David.’

‘I know it is. I’m just saying that you don’t have to feel this way again. It’s simple enough to block a number and it isn’t a sign of weakness.’

She opens her mouth to respond but he’s hit the nail on the head.

Their food arrives and Mary Margaret begins to chat about other topics sensing a change in conversation is needed. It takes a solid five minutes of idle chatter but the determined brunette skilfully coaxes them both back into the conversation and by the time they’ve finished their food any of the tension has evaporated.

‘Emma, can you take Leo for a few minutes while I choose my cookie?’

Emma gladly accepts her nephew being passed into her arms and lets the immediate warmth of him wash over her.

‘David, you’re helping me choose.’ There’s no brooking for argument and David is out of his seat following his wife to counter leaving Emma alone with the comfort of Leo.

When they return, David doesn’t sit. He presses a soft kiss to his son’s head and then one to Emma’s temple. ‘I don’t mean to be a pain.’

‘You’re not.’

‘Thank you for telling me about it anyway.’ He looks as if he wants to say something further on the matter but thinks better of it. Instead saying his goodbyes to Mary Margaret and offering a hasty reason as to his exit that Emma is fairly certain his wife has just informed him of at the counter.

When the two women are left alone, Mary Margaret snaps her cookie in half and pushes the other half over to Emma on the plate.

‘So Leo and I can walk you back to work when we’re done here.’

Emma smiles at that looking down at the little life tucked into her arms. He manages to look so much like his parents even at this young age.

‘You know he just needs to yell and clench his fists for a while. He meant what he said before – you’ve handled this so well.’

Emma marvels at how well her friend has come to know her. Surprisingly, she’s often not the more rational one in their relationship. Emma’s always thought it something to do with her using all of her stores of patience and calm in her job. No, she isn’t always the rational one out of the Nolans but she is when it comes to Emma.

‘I get why he’s cross and I know it’s because he cares but I feel like I’m doing okay with it.’ She shrugs struggling to find the words to say what she truly means.

‘We can see that,’ Mary Margaret nods, ‘Just think about how you would react if someone who had hurt David so much tried to do as Neal has.’

Even at the thought of it, Emma can feel the adrenaline running through her. She’d do anything for David and he for her. She gets it. She does. It was never really about that. She just wants to put it behind her rather than dwell on it.

A few crumbs from her cookie land in Leo’s hair and Emma tries not to giggle as she wipes them away.

‘Do you want to come for dinner tonight?’

‘I think I want to be alone tonight, you know.’ She knew she could handle it with Killian beside her but she needed to know for herself how she can handle it being just her. This thing between them is still new regardless of how good it feels and she wants to know she can stand alone to handle this.

Her voice is quiet when she speaks again. ‘So, you’re really fine with the Killian thing?’

Laughing at her choice of words, Mary Margaret rises to start fastening Leo back into his stroller. ‘The ‘thing’ between you and Killian wasn’t too hard to see coming. I’m just glad you’re open to the idea.’

_Me too_ , she thinks.


	8. Chapter 8

It’s around three in the afternoon when the lack of sleep truly hits him. Damn his office having a glass wall on one side preventing him from resting his head on the desk.

He’s sent Emma a few light-hearted messages throughout the morning hoping to bring a smile to her face but his mind keeps drifting towards her no matter how much he should be concentrating on the documents before him.

A knock jolts him from his vacant stare at the computer screen before him. David enters his office looking agitated. He finds himself sitting up a littler straighter. If Dave needs his help, then he’s ready whether he’s exhausted or not.

‘Dave, everything okay?’

He’s clutching a paper take out bag in his hands so tightly that the paper has torn in a couple of places.

David must see where Killian’s eyes had gone because he releases his death hold on the bag and sets it down on the table before dropping into the seat opposite Killian.

‘Cookies,’ he mumbles waving his hand at the bag.

Killian has absolutely no idea what is going on. Still, he reaches in without hesitation hoping that a sugar rush will perk him up.

‘I just had lunch with Emma.’

He freezes with the cookie before his mouth.

‘She said that the two are you are together.’

Killian suddenly feels very warm. He wasn’t entirely sure what he was expecting David’s reaction to be to the news but he certainly wasn’t expecting the restless anger emanating from David now.

He leans across the desk willing David to believe the honesty in his words. ‘Look, David. I know you and I are good friends but Emma is your family. It was her call when to tell you about this and I respected her wishes. I wasn’t trying to keep it from you.’

David scrubs a hand over his face. ‘I didn’t mean,’ he begins and then stops. ‘I’m not mad about that, Killian. Christ, sorry I’ve made a mess of this. I appreciate you following Emma’s wishes on this and I have no problem with you dating her.’

Killian feels the relief wash over him and the racing of his heart slow down. He hadn’t quite realised how much he wanted David’s approval until he thought he didn’t have it. Suddenly it clicks as to why David is angry.

‘She told you about Neal then.’

David clenches his fists again where they rest on the arms of the chair.

‘How are you calm about this? I mean, you look like hell, but still.’

Killian chuckles at that and finally takes a bite of the cookie feeling the sugars immediate impact. ‘Trust me, mate, I would like nothing more than to punch that bloody idiot in the face. I’m really regretting pulling you off him that day in the car park.’

Leaning forward to swipe his own snack from the bag, David grins and Killian can almost see some of the tension leave his friend’s body. ‘Well Mary Margaret is very grateful since she likely would have ended up with a husband out of a job if I’d assaulted him on the grounds.’

They eat in silence for a while longer. Killian feels the relief of having someone to share this with. He’s so glad Emma chose to come to him last night but he’s still getting to know her and it feels good to shoulder the whole Neal scenario with another. He so dearly wants to do right by Emma.

‘I don’t get why she won’t just block his cell.’

He doesn’t quite understand it either but he knows it isn’t because she wants to hear from him. He thinks it has something to do with feeling like Neal is still dictating her life but he can’t be sure.

‘I don’t quite understand it myself but it needs to be her call.’

David leans back in his chair and Killian feels the weight of his gaze.

‘She must really care for you to have come over to yours last night.’

‘I care for her too.’

‘I can see that,’ David smiles. ‘Look, I know I don’t have to tell you how brilliant she is because it’s plain to see that you know that.’

Killian really hopes the heat he feels in his cheeks isn’t evident. He’d like to maintain some element of suaveness around David or he’ll never live it down.

‘I’m just going to say don’t give up on her. If you care for her as I think you might, don’t go too far when she pushes you away.’

‘I don’t intend to let her down, David.’

The rarity of his used of David’s full name isn’t lost on either of them. David stands and slaps reaches over to slap him on the shoulder.

‘See you later.’

‘Hey,’ Killian calls when David is halfway out of his office, ‘don’t suppose you fancy half an hour with the punch bag later?’ Perks of the jobs being that they get full access to the premium facilities at the club’s training centre and pretty much all the staff keep gym kit on hand.

‘Sounds like a perfect plan. I’ll see you down there at six.’

Killian hears David’s voice echo down the corridor, ‘If you can stay awake that is!’

He might need another cookie for that.

\-------

He feels better for having let out some steam with David in the gym after work but the exhaustion of the last twenty four hours have well and truly caught up with him when he turns the key in the lock to his apartment.

He drops his bag, jacket and keys in their rightful spots and moves straight to the shower. He’s fairly certain he could fall straight asleep but he needs to wash the workout off of him. Shower, food and then sleep is all he can manage. Unless Emma needs him, then he’ll summon the energy to move.

It’s as he’s just finished pulling on clean sweat pants after his shower that the doorbell rings. He moves quickly to open it. He knows Emma has explained that she needed a night to herself but he half wonders if she’s changed her mind.

He swings open the door to find a delivery guy from the pizza place by him he loves so much.

‘Delivery for Killian Jones.’

‘I didn’t order a pizza,’ he states and then mentally doubts himself. Is he tired enough to have forgotten doing so?

The delivery guy scans the record on his phone. ‘It was called in by an E.Swan and asked to be delivered here. Already paid for online.’

Killian just laughs.

He laughs even more when he opens it up to find the ‘Vegetarian Delight’ pizza inside.

She picks up on the third ring and she’s laughing before he can even speak. It warms him to the core.

‘You’re a bloody marvel, Swan.’

‘Just my way of saying thank you.’

‘Your thanks aren’t necessary but the pizza is appreciated nonetheless.’

Her tone shifts, ‘I mean it though, Killian. I really do want to thank you for last night and for being so good about the whole thing, for taking care of me.’

‘Well, I’d like to think it’s my job to take care of you.’

She’s quiet on the other end and he can’t help but feel if this is one of the times where he has overstepped the limits to where Emma is at.

‘Does the pizza count as me taking care of you?’ Her tone is light once more and Killian recognises it as something he has deemed ‘trademark Emma’ in his eyes – deflecting feelings with humour. She’s not refuting his words thought either and he knows she speaks her mind. It’s one of the many things he finds brilliant about her.

‘Aye, lass. It definitely does.’

‘I blocked his number.’

He closes his eyes in relief. Pleased that she has made this decision. Neal doesn’t deserve the opportunity to have a foot in the door to her lifer.

‘That’s good.’

‘I think so too.’

\--------

The mood at work is far more depressing than it should be for a Friday but with the team having lost against local rivals in the final minutes of the game, it’s more than understandable.

Ruby leans her head around the door smiling in that way of hers.

‘You’re pretty chipper for a woman fielding a day of press following a loss.’

‘Oh it’s been vile,’ Ruby huffs stepping into the room and coming to perch on Emma’s desk. ‘I just have plans for tonight.’

‘Ruby, I really don’t want to know what you and Victor have planned to make you smile like that.’

‘I love that _I_ get to say this line for once – pull your head outta the mud! I meant that I have plans with you.’

Emma shakes her head. ‘We don’t have plans, Ruby.’

‘We do now. After the shitty week we’ve had I think we need a night out.’

Emma senses she is fighting a losing battle before she even begins. ‘Rubes, I don’t know. This week has been pretty tough and my body is ready for hibernation.’

Ruby sighs but not out of exasperation but understanding. Emma had told her about Neal and had promptly been wrapped up in the fiercest hug she thinks she has ever received. Ruby had used some rather choice language to describe Neal and then told Emma how amazing she was.

‘Look, Emma bring Killian along and I’ll invite Victor. We won’t be going wild as he has to be at the training ground in the morning. It’s just I see how you have handled this week in that very ‘Emma’, together and no nonsense kind of way of yours so, as a reward, we are going to celebrate that fact. This isn’t an ‘I’m going to drink my troubles away’ evening. This is ‘You’re amazing and we’re going to share a glass to celebrate it night’.’

Emma knows when she’s beaten. ‘I’ll speak to Killian.’

‘Brilliant. I’ll text you the details.’

When the cab Killian is in swings by to pick her up a little after eight, she already feels like an evening with friends is a good plan. She wants to put this week behind her and move on.

‘You’re a sight for sore eyes,’ Killian grins as she folds herself onto the seat beside him. He presses a kiss to her temple and she hates that she smiles at how good he smells. She’s being ridiculous but she finds she often is around him.

‘What does Ms.Lucas have in store for us then?’

‘Normally I would say who knows but with Victor being at the training ground early I think the ‘couple of drinks and a dance’ may ring true this time.’

‘You know,’ he says tugging her closer, ‘I haven’t had the pleasure of dancing with you yet, love.’

‘Hmmm, well I’m letting you know now that I’m not a fan of grabby hands.’

He laughs and she’s fairly certain the cab driver’s coughing fit is a way to cover up his own laughter. The irony of the statement isn’t entirely lost on her as she and Killian are very much tangled together where they sit in the cab.

‘Were things as morbid at your place today as at ours?’ Killian’s team had also lost the night before. The team finding themselves riddled with injuries meant that they lost a game they would typically win.

‘Aye. Not the happiest camp. David reckons Philip will be back on the ice by the game at the end of the next week but Jeff looks like another month out.’ He runs a hand through his hair. ‘We need to get Henry Mills on the ice yesterday.’

‘Aren’t you hoping to have all the finalised by next week?’ She’d been so impressed when he had explained how he had found the loop hole in his previous team’s pettiness regarding his eligibility to play. She’d struggled to keep up with some of the more technical terms in his field but could see how his plan would come together. It was nice to get a glimpse of him in work mode.

He always did have a way with words and she’s glad she doesn’t have to come up against him when he has the wind in his sails.

‘Well I’ll be there when you do get him out there.’

He sits up straighter forcing Emma to do so also. She twists slightly in the seat to face him as he speaks, ‘You really would?’

‘Of course. I said I would. I knew you’d pull this off.’ And she did, she realises. It doesn’t take knowing Killian Jones for too long to know that when he’s in, he’s all in.

He kisses her sweetly and she can see how much it means to him. She wonders if it has something to do with how secretive his life with Milah had been. She understands a little better now why he had felt so anxious about their relationship beginning in secrecy.

‘Thank you,’ he breathes against her lips.

The cab pulls to a halt and they move further away from one another like two teens being caught by their parents.

‘Here we are, kids,’ the driver calls as he slides back the panel between the front of his cab and them. ‘That’ll be $15.80.’

Killian hands him a twenty and opens his side to get out, ‘You can keep the change for calling us ‘kids’. Don’t get that too often these days.’

Emma whacks him on the arm for his nonsense but is grateful all the same for his steadying arm as she steps out of the car. Damn these heels.

The driver winds his window down, ‘You kids have a good night then.’

Killian laughs and bows dramatically (actually bows, the idiot) before the driver pulls away.

She kisses the smirk off his face, ‘You think you’re so funny.’

‘Well, I do so love to see you laugh - even if it is at my expense.’

‘Come on,’ she pulls him towards the steps to the bar mentally cursing Ruby for not having warned her. She definitely would have made a better shoe choice.

The place is nice, Emma has to admit. The furnishings are sleek but not too pretentious. There’s a band playing and the place is full.

She spies Ruby and Victor at a table by the far window and notes the happiness etched across her friend’s face. She’s kept pretty quiet about whatever is going on with her and Victor since they seem to have made it official - the exact opposite of the weeks of nonstop talk of him prior to it.

Emma smiles recalling Killian’s comments the night they had met about Victor being much the same. She mouths across the room to ask what Ruby is drinking. She holds up a near empty glass of red and Emma can make out a tumbler of something before Victor.

‘Do you know what Victor drinks?’ Emma asks Killian as she signals for the bartender.

‘Aye’

Killian orders for himself and Victor and Emma asks for a bottle of red for her and Ruby to share. They’re not at work tomorrow even if the boys are. She notes that Killian is drinking rum since he isn’t driving. He asks for a particular brand and she makes a mental note of it. She finds she likes learning his habits. Just another example of how Killian Jones is worming his way into her heart despite her walls.

‘Ruby, you look stunning,’ she says as they take their places at the table. Ruby’s dress manages to flow loosely and yet cling to her in all the right places.

Killian nods in acknowledgement. ‘Aye, lass you do look lovely.’

Ruby grins at Emma in response to Killian’s remark. She knows Ruby is thinking the same as her. How different he is to Neal. How Neal would never have said such a thing but would have looked at Ruby’s breasts lecherously anyhow. Killian, instead, had honestly told her that she looked nice and was now looking at Emma.

‘Thanks, guys.  You don’t scrub up too badly yourselves.’

Emma sees Victor squeeze Ruby’s arm in silent agreement making Ruby just smile harder. She likes seeing her friend happy.

Ruby, it seems, can keep her word when they reach Killian’s apartment a couple of hours later. A couple of drinks and dance had been right and it had been exactly what Emma had needed. A night in good company to forget her week and put it behind her had left her feeling tired in the best possible way.

Her feet just aren’t in agreement. As soon as she steps through the door she toes them off and gingerly steps onto the floor. ‘I am never wearing those shoes again.’

‘Whatever you say, lass,’ Killian grins as he hangs their jackets. ‘I happen to think you wear them brilliantly.’ He’s right, those shoes are brilliant but they may not be the most dance friendly and apparently when dancing is an option Killian dances. She and Victor had given up and left Killian and Ruby to it after a while.

It was quite nice to chat to Victor for a while and get to know him a little better. Emma found he wasn’t as aloof as initial appearances made out and it was evident that he was making an effort to get to know her as Ruby’s friend.

‘You two are good together,’ he’d said. Tipping his drink towards where Killian and Ruby were on the dancefloor. ‘You both seem happy.’

‘Oh, well thanks,’ she said rather awkwardly. She’d been thinking the same think about Victor and Ruby after all. It shouldn’t be too strange that Victor would be making a judgement about the two of them also. It just hit her like a tonne of bricks that no one, not the first time around or the second, had ever made such a comment regarding her and Neal.

Why had she been too blind to see it?

‘He’s got some moves too. I’m demanding he whips them out at the next work event. He’s been holding back on us.’ Victor grins.

‘He’ll hate you for it,’ she laughs.

‘I can take it. We don’t all get to see the carefree side of Jones too often. The players all like him immensely but he’s in his take-no-bullshit work mode when we normally see him. The odd one liner sneaks in here and there mind.’ Victor shrugs and Emma shakes her head. She can’t quite imagine Killian being able to contain his flair for the theatrics on a day to day basis, particularly when the man in question is now sprawled across his lounge floor like a starfish.

‘You have furniture, you know.’ She states as she folds herself into her sofa.

‘Here’s good.’

They’re quite for a few moments. Killian’s still prone on the floor and Emma resting her head on the arm of the sofa.

‘No grabby hands in sight,’ he hums.

Even in her tired state she throws her head back laughing before she moves to straddle him on the floor, caressing the collar of his shirt.

‘Now those hands seem very grabby, love.’

‘Good thing I wasn’t speaking about me then,’ she leans down to press a kiss to his throat and her lips tickle under the vibration caused by his snigger.

She moves to curl into his side on the floor and sighs. ‘This is nice.’

‘Aye, I can’t say I wan’t to move either.’

‘We’ll hate ourselves if we lie on this wooden floor much longer.’

‘Pfft, Swan. We’re ‘kids’ after all and we shall spend the night on the damn floor if we want to.’

‘You have work in the morning.’

‘Eugh’ He sits up and pulls her up with him. ‘To bed we go then.’

And if he carries her up the stairs claiming that it would not be ‘good form’ for her to take another step on her burning feet and if she doesn’t quite hate it, well, that’s something she’ll probably keep to herself.

Morning comes all too soon and Emma wakes to find the bed empty beside her. The steaming cup of coffee on the coaster (he’s a coaster kind of guy) somewhat makes up for it though and she glances at her watch she’d abandoned on the bedside table the night before. It is far too early for a Saturday where she isn’t working but then if there had been a choice to be made between spending the night at her place and sleeping in or spending the night beside Killian…well she knows she’d be in this very same position.

‘Morning, love,’ he smiles as he re-enters the room with his own cup of coffee in hand. He’s fully dressed in his suit trousers and shirt with the accompanying jacket strewn over his arm.

He looks so handsome and Emma can’t help but shake her head at how she seems to have found this pocket of goodness with him.  

‘Are you off now?’

‘Pretty much.’

She throws back the bed covers and swings her legs out. ‘Okay, give me five minutes and I’ll be ready to move.’

‘Lass, you don’t need to be ready to go. Stay in bed a while and go when you’re ready. I’ll leave my spare key with you and you can just post it back through or give it me next time.’ He gently swings her legs back in and leans in to kiss her good morning.

‘Oh, erm. Are you sure?’ She’s not quite sure how this goes. He seems completely unfazed about the idea of her staying around in his apartment and it doesn’t alarm her quite as much as she thought it might.

‘Well, if you case the joint I do know where you live.’

She laughs against his lips. He’s such a fool.

‘And I also happen to know this excellent lawyer with sparkling wit and charm.’

‘He sounds like a pretty interesting guy,’ she hums as his warm hand snakes up her side. ‘You’ll have to let me know next time he comes by.’

‘Oi, you!’ he yells playfully pinching her side. ‘Here I am bringing you your liquid poison and leaving you to your rest and this is the thanks I get.’

She yanks him forward then and kisses him with more energy than she thought she’d have at this hour. He pulls her up and into his arms and she can’t stop the little jolt of satisfaction that runs through her when he moans.

They part, both panting and Emma laughs at how wrecked he looks.

‘That was your thank you in case you were wondering.’

‘Aye, I got that,’ he grins. ‘As much as I do not want to go, I really need to.’

‘Good luck with the game.’

‘Fingers crossed for a better result this time out.’ With another quick kiss he leaves calling out that the spare key is on the coffee table.

Emma sighs contently and falls back under the covers sipping her coffee. She shouldn’t feel as at home as she does but she vows not to overthink it. Instead she focuses on the warmth of her coffee (The kind she loves that she’d brought over from her apartment.) and picks up one of the books stacked on the undershelf of the nightstand deciding to try and take her overactive mind off of worrying.

There’s no need to she reasserts to herself. She’s happy here. She should stay a while and then move. That’s fine. It’s a non-issue. She opens the book smiling. Of course he has the latest award winning fiction novel about bees in his bedroom.

\--------

He’d been so pleasantly surprised that Emma had opted to stay a while longer at his place. He’d done his best to seem very unaffected by it but he felt like it was a positive step for them. Not towards moving in together (although he wouldn’t be averse) but a step towards her being open to a little more happiness in her life. He also finds he quite likes the thought of her still curled up in his bed.

‘Morning Jack,’ he calls to the attendant at the ground this morning as he’s buzzed through.

His phone begins to ring then and he sees it’s Liam. Panic immediately floods through him. It’s around 3am in the UK. He hits answer before he’s even parked the car.

‘Liam, what’s happened?’

‘Killian. Nothing’s happened. Don’t panic.’

The tension leaves as soon as it had come. There’s only tiredness in his brother’s voice. No trace of alarm of fear.

‘Bloody hell, you gave me palpitations there.’

‘Sorry, little brother,’ Liam laughs. ‘Poppy’s just wide awake so we’re up watching some cartoons.’

‘My little niece the terror.’ He’ll never feel anything but pride towards her - even when she is keeping his brother awake at all hours.

Killian steps out of his car and moves towards the entrance.

‘Was that your car door? Where are you this early? Have you been out all night?’ Liam’s barrage of questions come thick and fast. Nosy sod.

‘Alright, Sherlock. Yes, it was my car door. I’ve just got to work. Afternoon game today and I have a meeting with the lawyer of the opposing team regarding a couple of things.’ He waves a hello to the receptionist on duty and feels that odd satisfaction that comes with sneaking into the elevator before the door closes.

‘So you haven’t been out all night?’

Liam sounds oddly deflated. How different a couple of years makes, Killian thinks. There was a time where Liam’s knowing Killian had been in his own bed at a decent hour would have filled him with nothing but joy.

‘No, brother, I haven’t been out all night. We went out for drinks with friends and were home by eleven.’ He speaks the truth unthinkingly, still slightly amused by his brother’s questioning. Unthinkingly uses ‘we’ instead of ‘I’.

‘Wait, hang on a minute there. What do you mean, ‘we’? Killian, are you seeing someone? Who is this elusive ‘we’ you speak of?’

Killian rolls his eyes. Liam is in full big brother mode now and he knows there’s no getting out of it. He’s grateful that he can at least exit the elevator where one of the physio’s was certainly trying to hide a smile being able to catch snippets of their conversation.

Where does he start? How can he fully explain how he feels about Emma? How utterly ‘right’ it feels. How she manages to give him butterflies and make him feel relaxed all at once.

‘You really like her, don’t you?’ Typical Liam. He’s always been able to read him and he’s interpreted his silence perfectly.

‘Aye, that I do.’

‘Tell me something about her. What’s her name? How did you meet?’

‘Emma,’ he smiles. ‘Her name is Emma.’

He regales Liam with the story of how they had met as he fires up his computer to print out some of the files he needs for his meeting. The story of Walsh being a prat and her laughing at the survival kit in his car. Liam laughs along with him at all the right moments and he doesn’t realise quite how much he had missed all of this when he had been with Milah. How little he could ever share with his brother.

 ‘She sounds like she’s good for you, little brother. Strong, smart. Able to put up with your nonsense.’

He laughs at his brother’s words. ‘Too bloody good for me.’

‘Well then, you’d better hang on to her.’

That’s exactly what he plans to do.


	9. Chapter 9

In reality, it turns out to be a couple more hours until Emma decides to rouse herself and shower at Killian’s. She manages to find a pair of running tights she had left at his place a few weeks ago after heading straight to his from a gym class and decides to help herself to one of his sweatshirts.

It’s comforting, wearing something over-sized, but she knows there will be no comfort in coaxing her aching feet back into her heels from the night before. For a moment she contemplates the etiquette of hot footing it out to the cab bare foot but decides against it. She dimly hears Mary Margaret’s gasps of horror somewhere in her mind.

She makes sure to dry up her breakfast bowl from the drying rack and place it away so as not to unsettle Killian’s needs for tidiness. _Things have a place for a reason, Swan_ he’d sulked when she’d picked up on his habit. She would have laughed had his stubble not been grazing her neck. _I’ll show you where it all should go_ he’d mumbled adorably. She shakes her head at the memory.

She tears a sheet from the note pad on top of his work desk tucked into the alcove by the window and scrawls a quick note as she awaits the cab. She adds an additional kiss for extra measure as she hears her phone vibrate signalling the cab’s arrival. As she steps out locks the door behind her and slides the key back beneath the door.

When she turns to head to the lift (stairs be damned in these shoes) she smiles politely to one of Killian’s neighbours who steps out wearing headphones.

Emma’s surprised when the woman pulls her headphones out and stops to talk to her.

‘Hi, I’m sorry I haven’t had the chance to properly say hello to either of you,’ she smiles and Emma realises she recognises her as the woman they’d spotted moving in recently.

‘Oh, no worries.’

‘I’d shake your hand but you don’t want to know where it’s been.’

At Emma’s consternation, the other woman’s eyes blow wide and a blush creeps over her cheeks. ‘Oh my…no.  Talk about putting your foot in it. I’m a vet,’ she explains.

‘Oh, right.’ Emma laughs feeling for the woman’s embarrassment.

‘Yeah, my boss got called in for an emergency surgery this morning and I didn’t want to miss out. This is my first post since qualifying.’

‘Congratulations,’ Emma smiles and she takes the chance to really take in the woman before her. She guesses she’s a couple of years younger than herself although the way in which she carries herself would allow you to miss it initially. ‘That’s impressive.’

‘Thanks,’ she beams in return. ‘It’s always been my dream. Feels good to finally get there. I’m Nina by the way.’

‘Emma.’

Her phone buzzes again in her hand signalling the impatience of the cab driver. ‘I’m sorry, I have to dash off.’

‘No worries. It was nice to meet you. I’d been meaning to come over and introduce myself to the two of you but hadn’t had the chance.’

‘I’ll pass it on to Killian,’ Emma nods as she steps into the lift. The mirrored panelling opposite her reflects her bizarre appearance. She supposes it could pass for some sort of ridiculous form of ‘sports luxe’ or whatever it is they are calling it in the magazines this season but she just finds it laughable.  She snaps a picture on her phone and sends it Killian letting him know she has stolen his sweater.

The cab driver isn’t nearly as entertaining as the guy from the night previous but she’s glad of the quiet. Lost in her thoughts she feels an odd sense of peace wash over her. She thinks of how happy Nina had appeared despite the fact that she was returning _home_ from work –surgery even – before 10am at the weekend. How content and at ease she had seemed and Emma realises that she has a little slice of that herself. Despite everything life had thrown at her, she has a great job, great friends, people whom she thought of as family and so despite her aching feet and the early hour, she can’t really find reason to complain.

(Being wrapped up in the warmth of Killian’s sweatshirt may have had something to do with it too.)

Her phone alights with a response from him not long after she reaches her house.

**I should be angry but the pilfered garment looks far better on you.**

Pilfered garment? Where did she find this man?

_I’ll make sure to lovingly fold it whilst it’s in my care_

**You’ll do no such thing but I find I don’t care**

He’s right. She’ll do no such thing.

She does, however, slip it back on when she returns from running a few errands and curls up on the sofa with her laptop ready to watch the game.

They win, convincingly so, and she catches a glimpse of her brother celebrating with Robin on the bench at the final whistle.

It’s a few hours later when he calls.

‘Hello, love.’

‘You won.’

‘Aye. A good win too.’

‘It was. I had it on.’

‘You did?’ She hears the pleasure in his voice but can’t resist the opening to tease him.

‘Well, you see, my brother is their team doctor so I like to watch for him.’

‘And is he the only reason you watch?’ he asks suggestively.

‘Pretty much.’

‘Liar’

She giggles. ‘You got me. Are you home?’

‘Yeah, just now.’

‘Meeting go okay?’

‘Very well actually. They have a new guy heading up their legal team over there. I like him.’

‘Good, that’s good.’

There’s a moment of quiet in their conversation and she can hear Killian moving about.

‘Hey, so I met your new neighbour this morning.’

‘You did? The lass down the hall? I’ve been meaning to catch her to see if all is well.’

Emma smiles. Of course he would do that. ‘Yeah, her name is Nina and she’s just qualified as a vet. Seems nice. Very friendly for so early in the morning.’

He laughs at that. ‘I gathered from a conversation she was having over the phone the other day when I passed her that she’s moved a fair way from home.’

Emma hums. Both she and Killian know a little about that.

‘So Liam called this morning,’ Killian continues as she can hear him pushing the controls on his microwave to heat up his dinner, ‘He asked about you.’

The familiar dread rises within her despite it being unwarranted. She’s gotten use to people knowing of her without knowing her being for all the wrong reasons. ‘How did he know to ask?’

‘Incorrect pronoun use on my behalf.’

She snorts. This man. ‘You really need to work on that Mr Hot-Shot Lawyer.’

‘Hardly, but I forget myself when it comes to you.’

She doesn’t really know how to respond when he says things like that. She does know that it warms her cheeks. That is tugs at the corners of her mouth and on the strings of her heat.

‘What did you say?’ she whispers.

‘The truth,’ he replies and she wonders just what the truth of them may be to Killian Jones. ‘He reckons you’re good for me.’

‘I always said he was smart,’ she jokes feeling self-conscious.

‘In this instance, I’ll agree with you.’

And later when she makes it to her bed, sleep doesn’t come easily. Perhaps because she does not have Killian beside her. Mainly because she keeps replaying Liam’s relayed words.

_He reckons you’re good for me._

And she knows that Killian is good for her. He’s patient and warm and loving where she’s not sure she is any of those things. She _knows_ he is good for her, but is she truly good for him? Shouldn’t he be with someone less… damaged? Less broken?

After an hour of tossing and turning, she huffs and tosses aside the covers. She pads downstairs in her socks to make a hot cocoa hoping something comforting and a change of scenery will lull her back to sleep. As she sets the pan to warm she spots Killian’s sweater tossed over the back of the sofa and pulls it over her bare arms feeling the gratification of its warmth instantly.

She closes her eyes and tries to imagine its owner’s reaction should she tell him her concerns. He’d likely pull her close and mumble about how ‘bloody brilliant’ she was as he pressed kisses to her hair. He’d tell her not to doubt herself (or him).

He’d be right, she thinks rationally. He’s a grown man who is able to make his own choices. He’s under no obligation to be with her. She repeats these facts like a mantra as she curls up on her sofa sipping her drink. She thinks of that very morning when she’d realised that she’d found her own pocket of contentment in this world but the thought - the doubt- lingers nevertheless.

\--------

He’s excited. Really, bloody excited. Henry Mills is finally getting out onto the ice tonight and there’s a palpable buzz in the air at the stadium. Home game, home crowd, media coverage and Emma will be in the stands.

He knows she’s been to some of the games before in support of David. He idly wonders how he’d never spotted her in the crowd. How he could have possibly not noticed her? Tonight is different though. Tonight, she’s here for him. Holding true on her promise to attend Henry’s first game. He can count on his hand the number of people who have shown up for him in life and the fact that Emma is now one of them overwhelms him.

He’d never been able to have this with Milah - this show of support. A commitment to being there for one another publically.

She’s busy talking to David and one of the team’s physios  across the room. Their team’s jersey tucked into her jeans and her hair tied back. She’s stunning. He makes his way over to them and he’s pleased when she tucks herself into his side. Her brother is here and she’s openly showing her affection. It feels like a moment.

He’d sensed something was amiss the morning after the previous game. Couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was about her texts that had unsettled him so. How a simple _I may have slept in your sweater last night_ had led to him feeling concerned.

He’d responded with some daft quip and a question as to whether she’d been cold.

_Something like that_

**You’re welcome to its comforts anytime, love**

_It helped. Thank you_

He hadn’t pushed. Thinking of what he knew of Emma so far, he doubted it would result in anything positive. He dearly wanted to know what it had helped with though. Had it been about Neal again or something else?

He recalled the couple of days silence after their first pizza date and comforted himself with the knowledge that that had worked out just fine. She knew she could come to him if she needed. She had regarding Neal after all and so he chose to let it go.

And now with Emma Swan tucked into his side as she came to support his team, he felt like it might have been the right call.

David and Sean say their goodbyes and head down to the ice.

He turns to face her and can’t help but grin, ‘You’re excited, love.’

‘Of course I am!’ she beams. ‘This is a big night. How’s Henry?’

‘Much calmer than I would be in his situation. The kid has an old head on his shoulders.’

‘You should get going too I guess,’ she says.

‘I’ll see you after the game.’

‘You’d better. You’re my ride after all.’

Laughing, he presses a fleeting kiss to her lips before making his way to his seat. He hopes dearly that tonight goes well for Henry. The team could do with it but so could the boy. He’s been through a lot from what Killian can tell and he deserves to catch a break.

He settles himself in to his seat as the teams are announced. He catches Robin’s eye and feels steadied by his friend’s calmness. His assuredness. _Come on, lad._ He thinks. _Show them what you’ve got._

_\--------_

He’d more than blood shown them. Henry had been mesmerising to watch. The speed with which he was able to make his plays had the crowd on their feet and the maturity of his movement kept the other team guessing.

When the final whistle went, the roar from the crowd felt as if they’d won the cup. Killian was up and on his feet with the others, slipping out onto the ice and into the fray. He’d clasped Robin heartily on the back and then searched for her in the crowd. He wanted to share this moment with Emma above anyone else.

Finding her gaze across the crowded stadium he found her smiling at him and shaking her head. Amongst the sea of people it felt, for a brief moment, as if it were just the two of them. She’d believed in him. Believed in this crazy plan he and Belle had concocted.  Bloody hell, Belle. He needed call her. He knew she was out of town visiting her father but if anyone deserved to share in this moment it was her.

He reached down into his pocket to pull out his phone but as he went to find her number in his address book, his phone lit up with a picture message from the lady herself. He laughed at the sight of Belle and her father pumping the air decked out in the team’s kit. The caption reading – _We make quite the team, Jones._

**Too right, Lady Belle. Hope you celebrate tonight**

She sent back the dancing lady emoji and he really dreaded to think what kind of raucous evening she was going to drag her father into. Just as he had with Mary Margaret, Killian learned long ago that Belle worked hard and played hard despite the angelic exterior.

‘Killian! Killian!’

He swivelled round looking for the source of his name only to find a beaming Henry making his way towards him.

Killian pulled him into a fierce hug when he came close enough. ‘You did it, lad!’

‘ _We_ did it,’ Henry grinned as he pulled away.

‘Trust me when I say that out there was all you.’

The bashful shrug of his shoulders gave way to an ear splitting grin that made Henry look his tender age. Killian realised just how little he had truly seen the boy smile up until now.

‘Feel good to get back out there then?’

‘It felt like home.’

With that the reporters descended on the team and Henry was pulled away. Killian made a swift retreat to go and tie up any loose ends so he could get to Emma.

It’s an hour before he has everything sorted to his standards and he hears her before he sees her. The magic that is Emma Swan’s laugh. Knows that it is likely at the hands of her brother and isn’t disappointed to turn the corner and find the two of them in some sort of absurd competition whereby they are trying to throw soft mints across the room into one another’s mouth.

‘You know people around here actually think you responsible, Dave,’ he quips from his position leaning against the door frame.

Emma snorts which earns her a mint thrown at her head. ‘You get one too,’ Davis huffs before Killian ducks out of the way from the flying mint.

‘Did you see Henry’s post-match interview Mr Special Mention?’ David asks.

‘Aye, I did hear of it.’ He’d needed no thanks for the support he had given to Henry. It had been freely given but still, the poignant thanks he had given to the team, Robin and to Killian had meant something. He was also fairly certain that Ariel from the press team would be having a field day with the headlines about the humble boy-wonder.

‘Where was _my_ thanks, huh?’ David jests. ‘Just wait until I see Mills.’

‘Should I be scared?’

The three of them turn to address the voice only to find Henry standing awkwardly in the door way.

‘Nothing to worry about, lad. Just Dave’s old man sense of humour.’

‘Watch it, Jones. I can take back my being okay with you dating my sister at any time.’

A ripple of panic rushed through him. Are they at the point where they can joke about this? His eyes find Emma only to see her laughing at her brother’s words. He feels his shoulders relax immediately as he sees her stand and make her way over to Henry.

‘Ignore these two idiots. I’m Emma, by the way,’ she says extending her hand to Henry.

‘It’s really nice to meet you,’ Henry blushes as he takes her hand.

‘Killian, can you cast your eye at this before I head out?’ David calls and Killian moves to sit beside him leaving Emma and Henry deep in conversation.

He can’t help but feel the swell of happiness in his chest at how they are fitting into one another’s lives. How their connections are starting to become shared. He wants nothing more than to have her in his life.

How much it had meant to have her here to share in this. He mentally vows to get himself to her team’s next home game. He thinks David will need little persuasion to join him.

\--------

It had been a wonderful evening. The atmosphere in the stadium had been nothing short of electric and it was nice to be attending a sports event as a fan rather than for work. Nice to admire the plays before her instead of scanning for injuries, for twinges, for contact.

It had also been wonderful to see Killian’s hard work come to fruition. Henry was a marvel out on the. She’d felt a connection with him when they’d spoken later. Knew all too well how much it meant to feel a sense of belonging. To have people in your corner.

‘Henry seems lovely,’ she muses on the drive home.

‘He seemed quite taken with you as well.’

‘Jealous?’ she jokes. ‘He actually volunteered his time to our charity project should we want any extra athletes.’

‘Oh good for him.’

‘He said you told him about it.’

Killian pauses. ‘I might have mentioned it…and you.’

She sees the flush creep across his cheeks and knows that were both hands not on the wheel navigating the icy roads that he would be nervously scratching behind his ear.

She voices then what had truly been on her mind. ‘He said something about how if someone hadn’t of reached out to him, he didn’t know where he would have been…’ She trails off hoping Killian will fill in the blanks.

Killian seems to consider his words before speaking. She really has no wish to pry but she can’t quite explain why she had seen so much of herself in Henry.

‘He grew up in the foster care system. Got bounced around more than a few homes. As he got older, I think he feared that any homes only wanted him for his potential on the ice.’

Emma wrings her hands together in her lap. She often wondered what foster home had hoped for in her. Whatever it had been, they never seemed to find it and were all too happy ship her out again.

‘He’d been living with a retired couple most recently. They’d taken him after a couple of disastrous homes but he checked out as soon as he was old enough. They’ve tried to stay in touch but I don’t think he quite believes their affections to be genuine.’

‘I get that.’

He does loosen one hand from the wheel then to reach across and squeeze her knee. She lifts her head to give him a small smile. ‘Thank you for helping him.’

‘Anything for the glory,’ he smirks but she knows full well he is making light of the situation for her. Knows full well that he cares about the lad and his wellbeing.

‘Maybe we could invite him out next time we go for drinks?’

‘Swan,’ Killian chuckles, ‘he’s not bloody old enough!’

She hides her head in her hands. ‘When did we get so old?’

‘Speak for yourself, lass. I’m still fighting fit.’

‘Prove it.’

And later, he does just that.


	10. Chapter 10

He keeps the promise he had made to her after Henry’s game and turns up to her next home game with David in tow. They both wear her team's jersey and she laughs at the fact that they are also both wearing the same team cap. They look like a very handsome couple.

She tells them so.

At her teasing, David turns his cap backwards.

'Oh yes, that's completely changed up the look. I was wondering how I would ever tell you apart.' 

'Maybe this will help,' Killian grins as he leans in to press a soft kiss hello against her lips.

'That'll do it,' she hums.

At an obnoxiously loud throat clearing on David's behalf, she turns to find him with his arms crossed over his chest. She expects some sort of overprotective brother spiel but is surprised when he glares at her and not Killian.

'Hey, he's _my_ date for the night,' he says nodding at Killian who promptly moves forward and presses a smacking kiss to David's cheek.

'Don't feel left out, Dave,' he quips as he takes Emma's hand and drags her away.

 

'You shouldn't tease him like that,' she admonishes him but can't quite keep the humour out of her voice.

'He loves it.'

'You keep telling yourself that, buddo.'

'Emma! Killian!' They turn to find Ruby moving towards them. Emma smiles as she watches people move out of the way to accommodate her friend. Ruby Lucas on game day is not to be messed with.

Ruby steps into greet Killian with a kiss on the cheek. 'Hey, Jones. Glad you could make it.'

'See,' he turns to Emma grinning, 'people can't get enough of me today!' 

'Do I even want to know?'  Ruby smirks.

'He means that he just smooched my brother on the cheek because they are wearing matching outfits.'

Ruby's cackle attracts the attention of everyone around them. 'Brilliant! I want to hear all about that. How about a drink after the game?'

Killian turns to Emma with his eyebrow raised in question. It's her choice. Which it should be in this case. She's the one working tonight. She knows it's the way it should be and yet it's just another reminder of how _wrong_ things were with Neal. Emma Swan is no pushover but somewhere along the way she's lost her voice in their relationship. 

It's so different now and sometimes it's the smallest things that catch her out. 

'Sure, sounds good so long as there are no major injuries.'

Killian wishes them luck and goes in search of his 'date' for the night so that they can take up their seats. 

\--------

'You're happy.'

David's words cause him to halt with his half-time hotdog held before his mouth. 

Right, he thinks. Time to put the hotdog down. 

'Is that a question, mate?'

'No,' David smiles holding his hands up, 'just an observation.'

'Well it would be an accurate one.'

'It would,' David smirks at him.

 

'Dave,' Killian warns knowing there is more to come.

'Killian'

'Don't, please.'

'I didn't say anything.'

'You did and you bloody know it!' 

He knows David is getting at more than a mere observation. He knows how besotted he is with Emma. Knows he is more than half way in love with her already. He also knows that too much prodding may send Emma running for the hills. David knows this too so he can’t figure out for the life of him where this conversation is coming from. 

'I only meant that it's good to see you happy. I said it to you - _not_ Emma.' 

Oh, maybe they are more on the same page than he had thought. 

'Not that she isn't happy,' David continues, 'because she really is when she's around you. I see that.'

His heart beats wildly in his chest. That's all he wants. Her happiness. 

'I just mean that it's nice to see you so,' David pauses as if trying to find the right words, 'content.'

He quirks an eyebrow at David wondering what he means. Bar Robin, no-one at work knows of his history in New York and he had always endeavoured to make sure that his demons were never present at work. David in particular, whom he would class a close friend, has never suggested that he had been closed off or miserable at work. 

'So you're saying I was a grumpy sod before?' His tone is light but he wants to hear David's answer nonetheless. He knows Emma has brought a different kind of happiness to his life but he had hoped that he was doing okay on his own. Able to do okay on his own. He’s learned from all life had thrown at him how important it is to be able to be comfortable in his own skin.

‘No, Jones. That’s not what I’m saying at all.’ David drags a hand over his face regretting his words. ‘This is when I like to have Mary-Margaret at my side.’

He laughs. ‘For when you balls things up?’

‘Something like that.’

‘Aye, the Lady Nolan does have certain way of taming your bluntness at times. Must be a family trait,’ Killian muses.

Some of the tension disappears from David. ‘Look, what I meant to say is that _this_ ,’ David waves his hands in front of Killian, ‘the teasing and good humour and company has always been there. It’s just there were times when you seemed as if you were berating yourself for something.’

He’s not sure if anyone has ever studied a hot dog as diligently as he is now. What does he say? That David has hit the nail on his head. That he has learned to stand alone and but never quite got past his previous errors in judgement. That he awakes at times drenched in sweat from nightmares in which he had run that family off the road.

He feels Dave’s hand squeeze his shoulder briefly, ‘I never asked and I never will because I know you have people in your life to talk to. It’s just good to see your seem a little less burdened.’

‘Thanks, mate.’ Killian nods. He is better. He’s come a hell of a long way in the past couple of years and Emma feels like the start of yet another chapter.

‘Now eat your ‘bloody’ hot dog as you would say.’

‘No matter how many times you keep practicing my accent, it never gets any better. It’s quite the talent.’

David smacks the peak on his cap so it falls down over his eyes.

‘I’ll kiss you again.’

He faintly hears the chuckles of someone behind them. Very much hoping their antics won’t have embarrassed Emma too much in front of a colleague or another family member too much.

They do make it out for a drink after the game. The four of them crowd into a booth in a bar near to the football stadium. Ruby insists drinks are on Emma for some reason unbeknownst to him and David but Killian senses it may be of the more private nature given the way that Emma blushes and scuttles away to the bar. David goes after her to aid with the drinks and he almost feels himself blushing from the knowing smirk Ruby fixes him with.

‘So I’ve been meaning to ask you for some tips for Victor’s birthday,’ she says and Killian is glad whatever moment they were having has passed.

‘I’ll help if I can, lass but you’d probably be better off asking Jeff.’

She huffs. ‘I have and he’s useless. He’s in some sort of injury funk and communicates in grunts’

‘Sounds about right,’ he smiles. Jefferson is an unusual character to say the least. ‘What were you thinking?’

‘A bit of a party? Maybe a surprise at his place since the sponsor’s party at his was when we first …’she trails off grinning to herself and Killian clears his throat loudly. Some things he doesn’t need to know. Ruby, however, carries on unawares of the image she had painted for him of her and his colleague. ‘Then I thought we could try to schedule a weekend away. It’s so hard with our schedules.’

‘I think he’d love it, Ruby. I’m fairly certain he’d be happy with anything from you.’

She smiles as his words and he can’t help but dwell on her words of a weekend away. Like Ruby and Victor, he and Emma know the difficulties of busy schedules. Although there are times when he is grateful for it. There are times when he feels if he were more available then Emma might feel crowded. It doesn’t stop him from yearning for their own weekend getaway though.

‘Hey, here you go. Are you happy now?’ Emma gripes at Ruby as she settles their drinks down.

‘Very,’ Ruby acknowledges.

‘To a good game won,’ David says raising his beer. They clink their various shaped bottles and glasses as he wraps his arm around Emma’s waist beside him.

‘Thanks for coming,’ she says quietly enough for only him to hear. Ruby already having engaged David in plans for Victor’s birthday.

‘My pleasure. I had a great time.’

‘Was everything okay with David?’ He voice sounds nonchalant but the way she works her lower lip with her teeth belies her.

‘Swan, your brother and I are friends. You know that, love.’ He says trying to assuage her concerns.

‘I know. He just is never okay with who I date.’

He can think of a few reasons as to why David was right to have hated Neal’s very existence but holds his tongue on that front.

‘Well, I intend to be the one to change that.’

‘Good.’

_This woman_. She smiles that little Emma smile where he lips almost turn down at the edges. The one where she’s vulnerable.

‘Gods, I want to kiss you now,’ he whispers.

‘Well if you intend on winning David’s approval I’d probably recommend against it,’ she smiles but there’s a raise of her eyebrows that almost seems like a challenge.

He’s just about made up his mind to kiss her senseless anyhow. Ruby, for one, would heartily approve. It’s then that David’s voice calls over the table.

‘Hey, sis’ all this talk of birthdays has made me think about our kayaking adventure. We need to get a date in the diary.’

‘We do,’ Emma grins as she pulls out her phone to check her calendar. She gives Killian’s knee a sympathetic squeeze under the table. He hopes it’s a promise of later.

And as much as he had wanted to kiss her, always wants to kiss her, he’s also quite content to sit here in the company of her and his friends. He feels as if he has a life here to finally be proud of. A life Liam would be proud to see him lead.

He rings his brother when he gets back to his apartment later that night. Judges it to be around the time he’d be getting home from work in London.

‘Little brother!’ Liam greets him happily.

‘Sod off.’ He knows his protestations are fruitless. Knows he will forever be the ‘little’ brother in Liam’s eyes.

‘You called me and now you’re telling me to ‘sod off’. Poor form, Killian.’

He laughs at the familiar patter of their back and forth banter.

‘How’s your day been? Are you finished up for the day?’

‘Aye, all seems to be going well. The sponsors seemed delighted with their investments thus far.’

‘Of course they are,’ Killian smiles. Once again, Liam has proved himself to be a fine captain. Only this time it is of a new shipping company rather than an actual ship. A shipping company that not only transports goods, but charitable shipments to overseas countries after he (and Kris) had won around a host of various big company sponsors.

‘So what have you been up to? No game today?’

‘In a manner of speaking. I went to go see Emma’s team play with her brother.’

‘That’s David, right? The doctor at your team?’

‘That’s the one.’

‘He’s not giving you a hard time or anything is he? About seeing Emma?’

‘Careful, Liam. You’re overprotective streak is showing.’ Truth is, he really doesn’t know where he would be had Liam not wielded his big brother prerogative at times. He and David could go into competition.

‘I just meant that this girl is lucky to have you, Killian. Any man who claims otherwise is a fool.’

The line is quiet as Killian takes in his brother’s words. All he ever wanted was to do right to thank Liam for all he had done for him. Knows full well how much of his own childhood his older brother sacrificed so that he could have one.

‘Thanks, Liam.’

‘So did they win – Emma’s team?’

‘They did. Fairly convincingly too. We went out for a drink with David and her friend from work afterward. Ruby is dating Victor on our team.’

‘Bloody hell, you like to keep it close over there don’t you?’ Liam laughs, ‘I feel like I might need some sort of family tree scenario to keep up.’

Come to think of it, there were a lot of close connections between the group of people he had grown to call friends. ‘I hadn’t really thought about it like that. They’re all good people though.’

‘I’m glad, little brother. You deserve it.’

He’s glad Liam hears him. He wants to tell him that he’s doing okay. That he has a decent life. He just doesn’t know quite how to say it without sounding self-important.  Seems Liam gets it anyway.

‘You’d like Emma, I think.’

‘I’m sure I will if she’s helping to make you this happy.’

He is. Happy, that is.

‘Maybe we could Skype sometime so I could get to meet and thank her in person?’

He’s mighty glad he’s not on Skype now so his brother can’t see his red tinged cheeks.

‘Aye, that’d be good. Look, I’ll let you head on home to your girls. Thanks for the chat, Liam.’

‘Always. Elsa will be sad to have missed you.’

‘Tell her to give me a call over the weekend. We don’t have a game.’

‘Will do. Talk soon, Killian.’

He hangs up and can’t help but smile at the similarities between himself and Emma. She’s not the only one whose overprotective brother has never approved of anyone they’ve dated. He dearly hopes Liam is as enamoured with Emma as he is.

Well, not _quite_ so enamoured, but something close to it.

\--------

‘Is that from Killian?’

Emma lifts her head at Mary Margaret’s question. She nods and taps out a reply to his daft picture of him and Roland.

‘What’s he up to today?’

‘He’s spending the day with Robin and his son. Something about mini-golf and ice-cream.’

‘I’m sure Regina will love that,’ Mary Margaret smiles smugly.

Emma laughs. She’s had little to do with Regina Mills but knows she’s a force to be reckoned with and she’s fairly glad she won’t be there when Killian returns Roland with a sugar high.

‘Well, why don’t you invite him over for dinner tonight?’

Emma freezes, ‘Dinner here?’

‘Yes, if you’re okay with it? I haven’t seen him in a while and you’re already staying and…’

‘And what, Mary Margaret?’ Emma asks narrowing her eyes.

Mary Margaret attempts to busy herself stacking some of the paper they have spread across the Nolan’s kitchen table.

‘It’s just that David gets to see the two of you together and I never have.’

‘What?’ Now she’s confused.

‘Look, I know it seems daft but David is always warmed by how happy the two of you seem together and I just guess I wanted to see that for myself. To see you happy.’

Emma reaches over the table to steady Mary Margaret’s frantic tidying.

‘If it’s too much, Emma, if I’m being overbearing, just say no. I’ll organise to catch up with that Englishman at another time.’

She realises then, that it’s not just Emma Mary Margaret is eager to see happy. She’s made a place in that big heart of hers for Killian Jones somewhere along the line too.

‘It’s fine. Dinner sounds good,’ Emma nods as if affirming the fact to herself.

‘It is?’ her friend gushes. ‘Oh wonderful. Message and see if he’s free then.’

Emma thinks for a moment, ‘You know what, you text him. He’d love to hear from you I’m sure.’ She thinks the invite might mean as much to Killian as it does to Mary Margaret.

As Mary Margaret stands to use her phone where it’s plugged in on the counter top, David enters through the kitchen door with little Leo in his arms. Emma wraps her arms around her against the cold they bring in with them.

‘How was the park?’

‘Great. Leo charmed every female there,’ David smiles.

‘Should I be worried?’ Mary Margaret asks as she kisses David hello and lifts her son into her arms. ‘Good news – Killian is coming for dinner!’

David turns to look at her. A question in his eyes.

‘Well, Mary Margaret has invited him anyhow. He may be defeated by mini-golf.’ She tries to convey with her gaze that she is okay with this and David, thankfully, seems to get it.

‘He’s not having the biggest slice of pie though.’

‘Never, darling,’ Mary Margaret grins as she presses another kiss to his lips.

‘I’ll leave you ladies to it for a bit,’ David says as Leo is once more moved into his arms.

They’ve been busy all day putting final touches to their planned celebration evening for their charity.

‘Let me know when you need a hand with dinner,’ he calls as moves into the lounge.

Emma taps out a quick message to Killian. She knows him well enough to know that he’ll hesitate over the invite unless he knows that she’s inviting him too. He’d promised to go at her pace and he’s proven a man of his word in every aspect.

_Don’t eat too much ice-cream. I have plans for you to steal the biggest piece of pie!_

\--------

Dinner is wonderful. The food, of course, is delicious. Emma may have picked up a couple of things from Mary Margaret over the years but the woman is a marvel in the kitchen. David’s pretty adept in the kitchen too. Much as he won’t let her forget it. She recalls him saving her when she had tried to cook dinner for Ruth one night as a teen.

Dinner is wonderful and the company isn’t bad either. Killian brings wine when he arrives and a barrowful of stories from his day. Little Roland sounds like a little heartbreaker in the making. He looks incredibly handsome and he’s brilliant with her family and Emma finds herself just that little bit more endeared to him.

Emma senses their may have been a Nolan team talk she wasn’t privy to at some point earlier on in the evening as Mary Margaret firmly keeps a lid on any relationship based questions and she just about manages to curtail her little gasp of excitement when Emma kisses Killian hello.

Dinner is wonderful.

Until it isn’t.

She offers to serve up the pie (Cherry. Mary Margaret has some weird agenda against Apple pies) and has just about manoeuvred Killian the largest piece when David catches on to her plan and throws his napkin at her.

‘You two do that a lot,’ Killian laughs.

She turns to face him with her hands on her hips. It’s not Killian she’s trying to intimidate –she’ll get to her brother in a minute. ‘Do what?’

‘The throwing of objects at one another,’ he muses gesturing at the balled up napkin on the table top.

‘We do not,’ she huffs.

Mary Margaret grins serenely over the rim of her glass. ‘Yeah, sweetie, you definitely do.’

‘Well he normally starts it.’ She sounds like a child. She knows this. And really it’s David’s fault.

‘I’m just keeping you in line. Brotherly duty and all.’ David leans over to snatch the dish with the prize piece of pie in from her grasp. ‘Sorry, Jones. My house, my rules.’

‘You’ll hear no complaints from me when the food and the company are this good.’

They make a light-hearted toast to Mary Margaret who wafts their compliments away.

‘I’ve been meaning to ask if you have some sort of timetable for the classes run at your school,’ Killian asks Mary Margaret as he tucks into his pie.

‘You’re a little old for school, Jones,’ Emma states as she elbows him beside her.

He rolls his eyes at her, ‘Ha, bloody ha. I meant the evening classes. Do they still run the fitness sessions and what not?’

Emma can’t fathom why he would be asking. She can hardly picture Killian doing Zumba alongside the soccer moms. He keeps himself in shape but he mainly runs or uses the facilities at their training ground.

Tuning herself back into the conversation, she hears Mary Margaret explaining how the timetable changes each month so he’d be better waiting the week out to get one for the following month.

‘Thanks lass.’

‘It’s good of you, Killian. I’m sure she appreciates it,’ Mary Margaret nods approvingly.

What’s good of him? ‘Sorry, I think I zoned out for a minute there. Who appreciates what?’ She works to keep her tone light but Killian must catch her concern anyhow since when he replies he finds her hand beneath the table and tangles his fingers in hers.

‘I popped to speak to Nina, the new neighbour, after she’d introduced herself to you last week, love. She was saying she was finding it hard to meet new people here since she’s working so much and asked if I knew of any decent gyms or running clubs in the area.’ He squeezes her hand a little tighter. ‘I thought the classes at the school might help her to meet some decent people rather than get hit on in the gym.’

Emma smiles lightly. His response seems so very, Killian. Decent and honest and well-meaning, ‘Maybe she wants to get hit on. Fresh start and all.’ She says offhandedly.

‘Oooh, well then she should really take the Insanity class. The instructor is rather handsome if I say so myself.’ Of course Mary Margaret would find somewhere to direct her matchmaking impulses.

Killian clears his throat, ‘Not quite sure how I make that recommendation without sounding like a creeper.’

Mary Margaret grins, ‘You leave it to me. What does she look like? I’ll get one of my colleagues to do some behind the scenes work for me.’

Killian works a hand through his hair. ‘I feel like I am organising some sort of arranged marriage for the lass now.’

Emma squeezes his hand beneath the table in return and laughs at his misfortunes. ‘Don’t tell me this is the first time you’re actually seeing Mary Margaret matchmaking skills in action? You expect me to believe that she has known you for more than a year and not tried to set you up with someone before now.’

‘Actually, no.’

‘What?’ Her voice is probably louder than she intended. ‘How is that fair?’

‘You’re family, Emma.’ Mary Margaret replies as if that explains everything. ‘Now, give me a description I can work with.’

Sensing defeat she gives a brief description of Nina – average height, slim, wavy brown hair below her shoulder, pretty – and decides to prod Mary Margaret about it some other time.

‘Well look at that, Jones. You will have found this girl her True Love by the end of the month,’ David grins and Emma senses that her bother is enjoying being the one to tease his friend for once. From all she has heard and seen, it tends to be the other way round.

Killian squirms in his seat. The tips of his ears slowly turning red.

‘Nonsense, Killian,’ Mary Margaret says fixing she and David with a glare, ‘Ignore the both of them and their cynicism. It’s very sweet you trying to be a good neighbour.’

David knows when to listen to his wife it seems. ‘You’re right of course. It is good of you, man. You’re a regular knight in shining armour.’

And it’s that. An inconsequential comment that has her stomach churning in knots because what if that’s it? What if that’s the reason he’d been drawn to her?  What if it’s his goodness - his need to do right by people? Good form and all.

Milah.

Henry.

Nina.

Her?

He tried to fix Milah’s seemingly unhappy marriage, he tried (and did) fix a lot of Henry’s problems, he’s fixing Nina’s loneliness…

and her.

Lord knows how he’s helped her.

Her heart clenches uncomfortably. Is he trying to fix her?

She’s not trying to say that his feelings and affections toward her aren’t genuine but what if he’s drawn to her because of her brokenness without even realising it. What if she’ll never be fixed? What if she’ll never be whole enough, _be enough_? What if she doesn’t measure up?

She takes a deep steadying breath and wills herself to get through the remainder of the evening despite everything in her wanting to run for cover.

She tries to repeat what she knows to be true:

Killian is a good man.

She’s overthinking it.

Killian wants her.

She’s enough.

It’s the last one that stutters and falters in her mind. She can feel the self-doubt edge in, burrowing under her skin.

She thanks the Nolans profusely as they leave, nodding mutely at David’s mention of doing it again sometime.

She does want it. Her family and Killian being together (wants it too much).

Killian walks them down the drive to where their cars are parked. His behind her bug. He leans down to kiss her and her heart aches with how much she wants it. ‘Thanks for inviting me.’ The words are whispered against her lips and she can hear the emotion in them.

‘Swan,’ he urges waiting for her to meet his gaze, ‘Are you alright?’

For a moment, a fleeting moment, she considers telling him but before her mind can catch up with her mouth she seems to have uttered the usual response. ‘I’m good, just a little tired.’

‘Okay,’ he says and she can’t quite read his tone. He presses a kiss to her forehead. ‘Let me know you get home safe, Swan.’

She nods and gets into the door he’s opened for her.

She waits until he’s pulled away and then puts her head in her hands. What is she doing? She definitely hadn’t thought that they’d be going home separately tonight after he had come for dinner. She’d much rather he’d followed her home or vice versa and instead she’s sitting in her freezing cold car willing herself to not cry.

When she gets home, she feels exhausted. Her emotions all over the place as they are.

She showers to warm herself up and then realises she’d forgot to text Killian.

_I’m home safe. Just nipped in the shower to warm myself up. I forgot to leave the timer on earlier._

**Thanks, Swan.**

She knows he sensed something was up earlier but how does she begin to explain how many past feelings of inferiority and inconsequence have been stirred up by nothing at all. She doesn’t want to ruin this and she types and deletes several responses before sending one that she hopes is suitably breezy.

_I’m already curled up in my ‘blanket cocoon’ as you put it._

_Night, Killian._

**_Goodnight, love._ **

She wasn’t lying about her cocoon of blankets. She rubs her socked feet against her calves to try and generate some heat and finds herself dearly wishing Killian were beside her. She expects it to be Mary Margaret when he phone lights up again. She doesn’t expect it to be Killian again.

**Whatever is bothering you, love. I’ll listen anytime.**

She does cry then. He _knows_ her. Why couldn’t he just mistake her sudden silence for tiredness? Why couldn’t he just expect a little less when she’s so bad at this.

She just messes things up and he can’t fix that.

She doesn’t text back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who has supported this story so far!


	11. Chapter 11

She doesn’t text back.

He knows she could already be asleep. (He rightly knows in his heart that she’s not.)

And maybe he should have ignored it like the other times when he’s seen and felt her retreat into herself but the last couple of weeks have seemed more real and lasting than anything he has experienced before. They’ve openly shared in one another’s lives and it had seemed so right, had felt so right. He’d kept checking for signs that Emma was uncomfortable with any of it and found nothing.

Found nothing until she’d released his hand under the table and stirred her remaining pie around in the dish until the red of the cherries bled into the cream.

He’d asked if she was alright as they’d left the Nolans only to hear her placate him with a line of being tired.

He knows – just _knows_ – it’s something more but he can’t fathom what it might be and maybe he’s the one who’s tired. Not tired of her (He doesn’t think he ever could be.), just a little tired of second guessing the silences.

He wakes early feeling restless and sees there is still no response from Emma. He decides on a run to clear his head and pulls on his shorts and t-shirt before searching for a sweatshirt he then realises is the one Emma wore home. He sighs and yanks on his windbreaker with more force than is probably necessary.

He runs and runs until his frustration gives way to exhaustion as he reaches the final kilometre back to his apartment. His head feels no clearer.

Elsa rings later and can clearly tell something is bothering him but she doesn’t press (unlike Liam would) and instead puts her intuition to much better use by showing him his lovely little niece over the screen. He finds some solace in the riot of dark hair his niece now sports and the way she smiles happily at him over the screen. She’s wearing an outfit he’d gifted her (one of many) and he finds himself smiling despite the unease in his chest.

‘Killian, you know as far away as I might be, I’m still pretty good at listening,’ Elsa remarks fixing him with that knowing stare of hers.

He sighs. ‘Aye, lass. I know. I don’t rightly know what’s the matter.’

‘Liam says you have a girl,’ Elsa grins. She may be more subtle than his brother but she’ll still take opportunities to rib her ‘little brother’ when she can.

He smiles and shakes his head. ‘That I do.’

‘Well, between us, you should absolutely introduce me to her before your brother. The look on his face would be priceless.’

‘Elsa Jones, you rebel.’ She’s absolutely right though; it would drive Liam crazy thinking he was the last to know.

There’s a knock on the door and he holds onto his open Macbook as he moves to answer it. Elsa happily chatting away about her plans to wind up her husband.

He pulls the latch on the door laughing. He pulls up short.

‘Emma,’ he breaths.

She shifts uncomfortably on her feet pulling the arms of her sweater further down over her hands. ‘Hi’

‘Hi’

 He stands there feeling the comfort of seeing her wash over him until he realises he hasn’t actually let her in. ‘Sorry, love. Come in.’

‘I’ll just be a minute,’ he explains gesturing to his Macbook. He watches as Emma moves into his lounge seemingly hesitating about sitting down and he can’t understand why she would suddenly feel uncomfortable in his home.

Elsa’s voice interrupts his thoughts from the screen before him, ‘I’ll leave you to it.’

‘Thanks,’ he says casting his eyes back towards Emma. ‘Please give lots of kisses to that gorgeous niece of mine.’

‘You know I will. Look after yourself Killian Jones or you’ll be hearing from me,’ Elsa says pointing a finger at him through the screen.

‘Love you too.’ He smiles. The Jones brothers are indeed lucky to have her in their lives.

He closes the screen and makes his way over to Emma dreading what she may say. He wants to reach for her but stops himself.

‘I…,’ he searches the planes of her face for some indication, any clue, as to what she’s doing here but for once he can’t read her. ‘I wasn’t expecting you, love.’

Her head is dipped down, her voice quiet, when she responds. ‘I hope I’m not intruding.’

He wants to say _Never_. That he can’t imagine a time where he won’t want her here but he feels like he’s standing on the edge here and the words don’t come.

Suddenly her hand is on his and he looks to meet her eyes. It pains him that he can see fear and hurting in there before she schools her features into something brighter. ‘I’m sorry if I was grumpy yesterday. The event and things are just playing on my mind.’

And it’s the ‘things’ he’s truly worried about but he senses he’ll get no more.

‘If you haven’t eaten, I fixed us a picnic that’s in my car.’

She’s not going anywhere, he realises and he knows there are questions he should be asking but he can’t help the way in which his hopes soar. ‘Is that so?’

‘When I say picnic, I obviously mean take out from the diner but…’ she trails away shrugging her shoulders but she’s smiling at him and he’ll take his chances so he leans down to kiss her and he pretty much sighs into her when he feels her hands come to cradle his face. Holding him to her.

‘Lead the way then, Swan.’ He says as she tugs him up by the hand.

They eat on a bench down by the water. It’s a little chilly but the cocoa is warm and the sight of Emma in his beanie hat will forever bring a smile to his face. He admonishes her for attempting to steal his fries when she insists on having onion rings for herself and she silences him with a kiss.

She asks about his day and he briefly fills her in on his run and his chat with Elsa. (He leaves out his nagging fears about her. Finding it hard to summon them when she’s here and tucked into his side.)

She says she and Ruby had gone shopping for an hour or so and he can’t help but think that Ms Lucas may have something to do with Emma’s showing up at his door.

\---------

He walks her to her car when they’re finished with their makeshift picnic and he’s thanking her for dinner with that stupid grin on his and it feels so much better than it had when they’d parted yesterday.

‘Thank you for coming to see me too,’ he whispers and his eyes sparkle with a happiness she knows she hasn’t earned. His thank you imbued with more understanding than he should have.

She stuffs her cold hands into the back pockets of her jeans. ‘Well, maybe I kind of missed you.’

He laughs stepping further into her space. ‘Just kind of?’

And what can she do when he looks at her like that? She knows she needs to sort through her anxieties but she _wants_ this. She wants this with him. ‘Well, you could convince me otherwi-‘ she begins to reply but her response is cut off when he covers her mouth with own. He pulls her close and she lets the warmth of him envelope him. She hates to admit just how much she loves this. She curls her head into his chest and lets herself have this moment with him.

‘Maybe I could come by tomorrow after work?’ She can’t quite explain why she’s been all over the place the last twenty four hours but she doesn’t want him doubting himself again. She’d seen the surprise and the relief and the fear on his face when he’d opened the door. Noted the way in which he’d hesitated before touching her, kissing her. She doesn’t want that.

Ruby had all but forced her into her car to come and see him and she’s glad she did. Her friend telling her in no uncertain terms to stop getting in the way of her own happiness. She’d also told Emma to tell Killian what was bothering her, but one out of two wasn’t too bad, right?

She knows she’s fooling herself but being vulnerable, admitting weakness still comes hard to her. Years of fending for herself had ensured her survival and honestly, it scared the crap out of her, to feel vulnerable. Then Neal and all of the very public, very humiliating mess he had brought her had made her weak and she’s still recovering from that.

She knows Killian is different but she’s still fearful that she’s not built for the happily ever after despite Ruby’s protestations.

And yet when she turns up the following evening after work to his place and he has a mug of her favourite hot cocoa waiting for her, she finds her fears quelling a little more.

‘I have a better idea,’ she says kissing him hello.

They decant their drinks into some of the travel mugs he has in his well-stocked kitchen and stroll along the waterfront talking about nothing and everything.

He laughs when a particularly friendly dog will not stop licking her ankle boots (much to the owner’s chagrin).

‘You know, I always wanted a dog,’ she confesses. ‘Just seemed like the definition of having a home and a family when I was little.’

She’s fairly certain she doesn’t imagine the way in which he squeezes her hand a little tighter. He gets it.

‘Well, what’s stopping you now?’

She fixes him with a stare. ‘Work,’ he says quirking an eyebrow.

‘Yeah, it would just seem unfair you know? I’m not home enough,’ she shrugs.

‘You know, I wouldn’t mind a dog too. One day,’ he speaks lightly but the implied suggestion is there all the same. She stops walking and turns to look up at him seeing the promise of something in his eyes.

‘Some scamp of a dog who causes havoc wherever he goes. The king pin on the eastern seaboard.’ he grins widely at his own theatrics and she shakes her head at the crinkles by the corner of his eyes and the way he carries on regaling her with absurd and fanciful stories about the fictional dog the rest of the way back to his place.

When they climb the front steps to his apartment they meet Nina making her own way in from work. The sight of her triggers the same fears as had emerged at the Nolan’s over the weekend but she does her best to squash them down and concentrate on Killian’s neighbour before them. Who, honestly, seems very nice and doesn’t deserve to have Emma’s demons taken out on her.

‘Hey guys,’ Nina says brightly. ‘I’m glad I caught someone. Do the radiators in your place sound like they’re going to explode too or is that just mine?’

She feels the way in which Killian tenses beside her. Knows the assumption that Nina has made about them living together and really, she is over here a lot and they’re clearly together so it’s not hard to see where the thought came from.

He’s about to answer, probably to correct Nina to assuage Emma’s own fears and stop her from panicking and something about the way in which he always thinks of her first has Emma speaking up.

‘You know, I used to live in this place a few years ago where the entire pipework system sounded like some creature of the deep.’

Nina laughs lightly but it’s Killian’s response that warms her heart. It’s brief, but he looks at her almost dazed by her breezy response.

‘They needed bleeding all the time but it seemed to do the trick,’ she continues.

‘Aye,’ Killian nods from beside her. ‘There should be a couple of keys in the residents’ supply box in the mailroom but if not I have spares so just come and knock.’

His neighbour thanks them and heads straight to the mailroom. The radiators clearly annoying her more than she wanted to let on.

‘You have time for dinner?’ he asks.

‘Hmmm, depends what you’re cooking,’ she teases.

He pinches her side lightly. ‘I could rustle up a bolognese.’

‘Sold,’ she says taking the hand of her mistaken roommate and following him home.

As he cooks, she’s replying to a few work emails from his computer when a notification of an incoming skype call from his brother almost has her dropping her glass of wine on the floor.

‘Erm, Killian,’ she says turning the MacBook round on the counter to face Killian.

He grins at the sight of who it is and flips the towel in his hand over his shoulder before hitting answer.

‘Liam!’ he shouts

Emma hears the shouted reply of, ‘Little brother!’ and briefly wonders if they are going to shout the whole conversation at one another until it appears that it’s just some sort of Jones greeting that they do.

‘Guess who may be coming to the east coast on a business trip?’ Liam continues.

‘Please tell me it’s Elsa.’ Killian responds but Emma has already caught the way in which his whole being has lit up at the thought of a visit from his brother.

He grins at her over the top of the laptop, ‘Love, will you stir this for a minute?’ he asks gesturing to the sauce simmering on the stove clearly wanting to give his brother and his news his full attention.

She smiles and hops off the bar stool to make her way to the oven. Fully aware that Liam will not only have heard Killian speak to her, but will also see her move in the background behind Killian.

‘So when is this happening?’ Killian asks excitedly but Liam clearly has other plans.

‘Killian, move out of the way so I can speak to Emma.’

She laughs at Liam’s words as she carefully stirs the sauce. Killian turns to her with a question in his eyes.

She can do this.

She calls out to the computer behind Killian, ‘Hey, Liam.’

Killian steps back to her placing a gentle hand on her waist, ‘You sure?’ She knows that he would come up with some excuse for her if she said no, but she wants to do this for him. For her.

She hands him the spoon and moves towards the screen, tilting it slightly to adjust for the change in height.

‘Good to meet you, lass,’ Liam grins at her.

‘You too,’ she nods and she means it. She knows how important he is to Killian. Knows he is brother and best friend wrapped up into one.

‘How’s Poppy?’ she asks wondering where to begin and it seems to be a good move because Liam clearly loves talking about his daughter and he manages to hide his surprise at her knowing Poppy’s name fairly quickly.

Liam Jones, it turns out, is just how she had imagined - completely at ease with himself and with a penchant for embarrassing his brother. As they talk, she traces the similarities to Killian in his features. They share the same blue eyes and dark hair although Liam’s are slightly paler on both accounts. His eyes don’t hold the fire of Killian’s, but maybe that’s just her. He’s broader in the face than his brother too but Emma grins to herself at the shared turns of phrase and mannerisms.

When he’s about to regale Emma with the story of how Killian came to get the scar on his right cheekbone, Killian loudly announces that dinner is ready and although Liam huffs she feels as if she has passed some sort of test when he tells her she’ll get to hear it some other time.

Emma carries their dinners over to the table and gives the brothers a moment to say their goodbyes. When Killian comes to sit down, the tips of his ears are tinged pink and she wonders just what Liam had said to him.

He pulls out his chair then seems to think better of it and marches around the table to lean down and kiss her. For a moment she forgets everything else and just revels in him.

‘Thank you,’ he says toying with the ends of her hair.

‘I always told you he was my favourite Jones,’ she jokes but makes sure to lean in for another kiss all the same.

‘You can relax now,’ he says as he loosely massages her raised shoulders.

She bends her neck at the pleasure from his touch, not realising quite how tense she had been. How much she had wanted to measure up in Liam’s eyes. Killian tells her over dinner that he had felt the same when David had found out. Tries to claim it was worse because they were already friends when Emma insists that would have made it better.

‘Regardless, you have nothing to fear. He’s quite taken with you.’

Her heart clenches hearing Killian’s words. She doesn’t realise how much she’d needed to hear them until she has. ‘Really?’

‘Aye, love.  Seems you’ve won the heart of another Jones.’

And she knows he hasn’t said the words but the meaning’s there all the same.

She doesn’t run that night. She stays.

\--------

Since dinner at the Nolan’s he and Emma have spent more nights together in the week. He likes it –more than likes it – this increasing familiarity with one another. He’s always felt like he’s known Emma since they met but this feels real. The little things like getting ready together in the morning and washing the dishes, the mean something to him.

He hasn’t asked what it was that made her bolt the night of the dinner. Knows rightly that he should of and yet he tries to comfort himself with the knowledge that each time she comes back to him. Each time they come back together (and he hopes a little stronger).

It’s one of these nights where they’re curled together on the couch after cooking dinner when they’re slowly revealing more of themselves that he realises that he wants this forever. He can’t see himself wanting something or someone else now that he has known (and loved) Emma Swan. He does, love her that is. There’s no sense in him trying to deny it and sometime he thinks Emma might know that.

He won’t say it yet though.

Soon, he tells himself.

It’s a Wednesday when the job offer comes through. _The_ job offer. The kind he had gotten into the business for. It’s a football team (‘Soccer’ team it says on the paperwork but he’ll never bring himself to call it that.) on the west coast. The sport he favours above all others. The sport he and Liam had played in the street growing up.

The job offer of his dreams.

He sits back in his office chair and drags his hand over his face. Bloody hell.

‘Killian, can you check over the documents for Jefferson’s…’ Belle enters his office holding a file towards him but pulls up short when she sees his face. ‘What’s got you so flustered, Jones?’

‘I’ve had a job offer come through.’

‘A what?’ Belle sits down  across from him. Shock colouring her features. ‘From who? When?’

‘Just now,’ he turns his computer screen to face her, ‘and that is from who.’

Belle quickly scans the document in front of her. ‘Killian! Wow. They really want you. I mean this is some offer.’

‘I know,’ he says in slight disbelief. Their words of praise turn over in his head. How they have been following his work and how impressed they had been with his handling of the Mills case.

‘Killian, this is incredible.’ Belle’s grinning at him and he can’t help but grin back. It is. He’s tremendously flattered by their offer. It’s just –

‘What is it?’

‘What do you mean? ‘

‘You seemed somewhere else there for a minute.’

‘It’s just an awful lot to take it,’ he says tugging the screen back to face him. He looks at the documents again but the facts don’t change. They bloody well want him.

‘I didn’t know you were looking,’ Belle says quietly. The two of them have become quite the team since he moved here and he understands where she’s coming from. He would have told her, had he been looking, but he’s just as surprised as she is.

‘I wasn’t,’ he says simply.

‘You know if you take it you have to write it into your swanky new contract that I’m coming with you.’

He laughs then and shakes his head, ‘Aye, lass. It’d make a fine impression for me to be making demands before I even get there.’

‘That’s precisely the time to make them,’ she quips.

‘You’ve bloody well spent too much time with me,’ He grins at hearing his colleague using his own words against him. To be honest, Belle is probably ready for the challenge of leading things here if he trained her up.

‘Well, congratulations on the offer,’ the brunette says coming round to his side of the desk. He stands and steps into her swift hug.

‘Aye, thanks Belle.’

‘Are you considering it?’

He shakes his head still in a little disbelief. ‘I don’t know, lass. There was a time where I would have jumped at this opportunity. This is the sport I got into the business for.’

‘And now?’ Belle prompts him.

It’s at that moment that a knock on his door alerts them to David’s presence. ‘Do you have a minute, Jones?’

He turns to Belle tapping the top of the documents she has brought in to him. ‘I’ll look through this as soon we’re done.'

‘Thank you,’ Belle says as she turns to leave. ‘This conversation isn’t over!’

‘What was all that about?’ David asks as he seats himself in the chair Belle was in.

Killian chuckles still feeling a little light-headed from the events of the morning, ‘You don’t want to know.’

And he thinks that’s probably a fair assumption to make. David really wouldn’t want to know that his friend and sister’s…well ‘boyfriend’, has been offered a ridiculous amount of money to move across the country.

‘What can I do for you, Dave?’

‘Neal.’

Bloody hell. As if this morning couldn’t get more complicated.

‘What’s happened?’ he questions edging towards the end of his seat.

‘Nothing, really. The usual. Or the old usual I guess. His drinking and stumbling out of clubs has just got himself splashed all over the tabloids. There’s accusations of drugs this time too.’

‘Bloody hell,’ he mutters, ‘Will he never learn?’

‘Seemingly not.’ David says as his brows knit together.

To their credit, his new team on the west coast had done well to rehabilitate Neal’s image following the termination of his contract here. They’d carefully managed his lovable rogue image and ensure he was ticking the boxes. His performances on the ice were more reminiscent of his earlier days but it seemingly wasn’t enough.

David continues. His voice just about remaining calm. ‘I guess his drunken phone call to Emma a few weeks back should have been a sign.’

‘Does Emma know yet?’

David leans back in the chair and looks up at the ceiling. ‘I really don’t know,’ he huffs, ‘I’m on my way to Wednesday lunch now though so I’ll soon find out.’

‘Thanks, mate.’ he says knowing that David will be the right person to tell Emma if the needs be.

David heaves himself out of the chair. ‘I just wanted to give you a heads up in case Emma needs you later.’

He feels a warmth in his chest. It means a lot that David trusts him to do right by Emma. To stand by her. He doesn’t intend to ever endanger that trust.

David leaves and he rests his forehead on his desk.

It had been quite the morning.

\---------

He’s a little relieved to get a text from Emma around and hour or so later.

_I’m fine. You and David can put away your fists of fury._

He’s not quite sure if he believes she’s ‘fine’ but he’s pleased to see her teasing streak is intact.

**I’m a gentleman, love. I’ll have you know I favour making a grand entrance on horseback.**

He thinks he can almost hear her snort from here.

_If you’re thinking about sending some quip about your mighty steed then think again, Jones._

**Oh really? I can always keep my steed to myself…**

_You’re an idiot_

**This kind of abuse won’t ensure the company of myself and my steed**

_You’re an idiot_

**He waits a beat as the three dots appear**

_But please come over later_

**As you wish**

And while he wouldn’t say she is ‘fine’ that evening, she’s certainly okay. She’s cross, more than anything.

‘He’s just such an idiot. He has it all and he’s throwing it away. _Again_ ,’ she says as she absentmindedly checks on their dinner and slams the oven door shut with more force than is probably necessary.

‘You won’t hear any disagreements from me,’ he says coming to stand behind her. He rubs up and down her arms before she turns into him and presses her face to his chest. He pulls her close and smiles when her hair tickles his nose.

‘He has people, right?’ she says quietly against his heart and it nearly breaks him. Here she is wanting the man who hurt her so badly to be cared for, when the man in question left her and never looked back.

‘He has people,’ he says tightly holding back his own anger towards Neal.

‘Good.’

He pulls back to tilt Emma’s face up to his own, ‘He has people, Emma. He does. Just please don’t forget that you do too. You have people.’

She bites her lip trying, even now, even with him, to hide her vulnerability. ‘Okay,’ she nods.

‘Okay.’

‘Killian,’ she says searching his face and there’s something in her eyes that makes his heart stutter in his chest, ‘I…’ she pauses and frowns slightly. ‘Just, thank you,’ she breathes against his lips.

He knows the words that were on her lips. He can wait. The thought of hearing them alone has nearly brought him to his knees.

‘You,’ he says leaning in to kiss her, ‘never need to thank me for being here. I’m here for as long as you’ll have me.’

‘Good.’


	12. Chapter 12

The event quickly rolls around and Emma’s excitement gives way to nerves. She knows how hard she and Mary-Margaret (and Ruby too lending her PR skills to orchestrate the evening) have worked on this but it still feels like a lot. She doesn’t want to let people down.

It may be her and Mary-Margaret’s baby but there is more at stake here. Born out of a night of Mary Margaret’s frustrated ranting at her feeling of hopelessness for not being able to do enough to help some of the children in need in her class. She does enough, more than enough, but it had struck a chord with Emma who knew all too well what it felt like to not have someone in your corner. To feel completely swallowed by the shadows.

And their reading programme has been a huge, unequivocal success. The players from their team more than willing to give their time and the children lapping it up. Choosing photos for the event had only pushed this home. She’d see the hope shining from the faces of the children and it had made all the hard work worthwhile.

Tonight is to be a celebration of the success of the programme so far but it’s also to try and roll out the project to more clubs and schools across the city. They’ve invited the powers that be from several other successful sports teams in the city and Emma felt the pressure to prove to them just how meaningful and how powerful a child feeling that they have a person, a champion in their corner, can be.

She really should be getting dressed; instead she is sitting cross legged on her couch scrolling through the speech she and Mary-Margaret are to make. Her hair and make-up are done so it won’t take her long to finish off but she feels the panic rise in her as she reads over the words once more. It’s good. She knows that. It makes the points they need to without preaching and it carries that touch of warmth that Mary-Margaret brings so well.

She huffs in frustration and snaps the lid closed on her MacBook.

‘Now, love. What has the poor computer ever done to you?’

She cranes her neck from where she is on the couch to see Killian walking over to her. He looks painfully handsome in his suit; his tie still hanging loosely around his neck.

He moves to sit before her on the edge of the coffee table. He places his hands on her knees and squeezes lightly already helping to assuage her unease. ‘Swan, what is it?’

‘I’m going to mess this up.’

‘You’re not,’ he says softly. ‘You might trip over on the stage, I suppose, or spill a drink down the front of some CEO but then Mary-Margaret may just as well suffer a wardrobe malfunction up on the stage that gives David a conniption.’

The laughter bubbles up from within and she can’t help but smile at the man before her who merely shrugs as if to say anything could happen.

‘People mess up, Emma. But what you can’t mess up is the fact that you have already helped so many children. Don’t forget that.’

She leans forward to kiss him softly because the words won’t come. That’s all she had wanted – to ease their loneliness somewhat. ‘Thank you,’ she says standing to stretch. ‘Just let me get changed.’

‘You already look gorgeous.’

‘They’re pyjamas, Killian.’

‘That’s what some say but I like to think of them as a deterrent against wardrobe malfunctions.’

 She changes swiftly and steps into her heels before checking her appearance in the mirror once more. She can reach the zipper on her dress perfectly fine but shoot her for maybe wanting to see Killian’s reaction.

‘Hey,  Jones.’ She calls out letting her voice carry downstairs.  ‘Can you come help me?’

She hears his footsteps on the stairs and then she’s pretty sure she hears him gasp when he steps into the doorway. She has her back to him but her eyes meet his in the mirror and she has to force herself to not look away. She knows the look on his face because she’s fairly certain it’s on hers too and it terrifies her. She’s so afraid that this won’t work and that her heart won’t be able to get past it.

‘You look…’

She watches as Killian seems to shake his head in disbelief before moving towards her. ‘You look beautiful, absolutely beautiful,’ he whispers into her hair as he zips up her dress.

She leans back into him and his arms snake around her waist to pull her closer.

‘You look pretty damn handsome yourself.’

‘Couldn’t show my lady up now could I?’ He presses a kiss to her check. ‘You ready?’

She nods and turns to lace her fingers in his. She hopes he understands it to be an invitation to stay close to her.

\--------

When they reach the stadium to see the main function room she has to blink several times to check it is truly real. She knows she has planned this but to actually see it is something else.

‘Wow,’ Killian breathes beside her.

The tables are tastefully decorated and there are hundreds of pearl and black balloons adorning the sides of the room. Each bunch tied with a book recommendation from the children. The photo runners and banners show the children reading alongside the players, show their laughter, show their visit to the team ground, show their pride.

Before she can add her agreement, Ruby all but barrels into her side. ‘Emma! You’re here. I’m so excited. Tonight is going to be brilliant. I can feel it.’ Her friend’s happiness is infectious and Emma finds herself pulled into her friend’s embrace.

‘Ruby, all of this is amazing. You’ve done a wonderful job.’

‘I know.’

Killian chuckles beside them and then it’s his turn to be pulled into a hug. ‘Hey handsome,’ Ruby smiles before wiping away the lipstick smudge she leaves on his cheek. ‘You gonna manage to keep this one from snagging a bottle of something to calm her nerves?’

‘I think I’m up to the challenge.’

‘I’m right here you know!’

‘We know,’ Ruby grins. ‘I’m just checking in with my co-captain of the Emma Swan Welfare team.’

‘I can look after myself.’

Ruby is saved from further digging herself into a hole by the arrival of the Nolans. They’re immaculately, and beautifully, coordinated in an inky blue dress and suit. David looks fit to burst with pride as the girls abandon them to do a final run through of events.

Before they know it, the guests are arriving and after half an hour of greeting everyone without forgetting anyone’s names, they finally sit down to dinner.

She can feel the buzz in the room and can’t help but smile looking around at all the people who are here. She spots Belle and Henry over at a far table deep in conversation. She still feels touched that they had asked to buy tickets. Killian admitted he had asked for Belle’s help in choosing the suit and she gets the feeling that Henry, like her, sees himself in the children involved in the project. Regina and Robin sit to their left and she’s hoping that Killian’s team will be one to sign up to the project after tonight.

‘It’s going brilliantly, love.’

She pulls her eyes back to the man beside her and smiles shaking her head. He’s right. She just can’t quite believe it.

Dinner is wonderful. The food at the club is always good but the kitchen have truly outdone themselves tonight. She feels herself begin to relax in the comfort of the people on her own table, the Nolans to their left and Ruby and Victor on the other side. Her boss and his wife and Mary Margaret’s principal and husband make up the final spaces. Conversation is easy and she relaxes into Killian’s side as Ruby gets up to lead the small auction.

She once again marvels at her friend’s ability to charm all who meet her. The audience laughing with her and freely opening up their pockets to support the cause.

It’s as Regina wins the final item of the night that the adrenaline once more begins to pump through her veins.

Before she knows it, Ruby is introducing her and Mary Margaret to rapturous applause from the room and her friend is all but pulling her up. David presses a quick kiss to the side of her head as he stands with them and she knows before she turns behind her that Killian has stood also.

She searches his eyes hoping that he gets her blind panic in the moment. He does. (Of course he does.)

He squeezes her hand and leans forward so that only she will hear.

‘I’ve yet to see you fail, love.’

It’s everything she needs to hear in the moment and she forces herself to stand a little straighter. There’s a reason she didn’t get in to public speaking but this she can do.

She doesn’t fall on her way across the stage which she takes as her first win. Getting to do this alongside her best friend is the second. As Mary Margaret begins she feels the adrenaline induced panic give way to a more pleasant kind of buzz.

Thankfully the spotlights on the stage hide most of the audience in a comforting semi-darkness. She searches out Killian’s eyes before she speaks and sees a child-like grin of happiness on his face. He and David both look a little giddy, whether from pride or the champagne she doesn’t know, but she’s glad she gets to share this with them too.

Her legs are only slightly shaking as she makes her way down from the stage. She swipes a champagne flute from the nearest waiter and takes a reassuring slug before they’re approached by the CEO of one of the city’s soccer teams.

‘A fantastic achievement, ladies. We would be delighted to come on board with the project in the not too distance future I hope.’

She and Mary Margaret exchange giddy grins like school girls before answering more of his questions and how the project could be managed.

The band has started up and people are moving to the dance floor which she takes to be a good sign. She’s not normally the biggest fan, but she could take a turn or two about the floor with Killian tonight.

They’re then approached by another team before they finally get a chance to get back to their table. David is happily chatting to Mary Margaret’s boss but there’s a pretty brunette in her seat engaged in conversation with Killian. The way they laugh with one another seems familiar and Emma wishes it didn’t shoot a spark of jealousy through. She knows there will be nothing to it (at least not on Killian’s behalf) but history with such situations never proved to be so innocent.

When he senses their approach, his face breaks into a huge grin and he stands to pull her into a hug. ‘Amazing. Bloody fantastic.’ He says between kisses and she should be embarrassed about the display before her boss but she’s also secretly glad that whoever this lady is will get the message that he is spoken for.

It’s David’s turn to heap on the praise then before he whisks away Mary Margaret to the dance floor.

‘Emma, this is Jasmine,’ Killian says gesturing to the female currently residing in her seat.

‘Pleasure to meet you,’ she says extending her hand.

‘You too. I was just telling Killian about how hopeful I am that the team I work for will take up the project,’ Jasmine responds in a British accent not entirely dissimilar to Killian’s.

‘Oh well that’s really kind of you to say.’

‘My boss can be a bit stiff at times but I think you may have won him over tonight.’

‘Fingers crossed.’

‘I won’t keep you but it was lovely to meet you, Emma. And you,’ she says standing to kiss Killian’s cheek, ‘don’t be a stranger or I will have to speak to that brother of yours.’

‘Aye, I’ll try.’ Killian laughs and Emma wonders at the connection Jasmine has with the Jones brothers.

‘Don’t let this one get away,’ she directs to Emma as she leaves.

She’s not sure quite what to do with the advice so asks Killian to dance.

‘I thought you’d never ask.’

‘So,’ she asks when she’s in Killian’s arms on the dancefloor, ‘what’s the story there?’

‘With Jasmine? She and Liam dated when we were younger. I have no idea why. They were always better as friends. I had no idea she was in the states, let alone working in the city now.’

‘She thinks a lot of you,’ she hums into his neck.

‘And I her. She was always a good laugh. You’d like her.’ He nudges his nose teasingly against hers and there’s a question there. A spark of humour in his eyes.

‘I was a little jealous at first, okay?’ she huffs.

He grins and steals a kiss.

‘She does seem nice though. Maybe we could all catch up some time?’

‘I’d like that, love.’ His broadening smile the only indication he is about to dip her on the dancefloor.

She survives two more dances before giving herself a time out and leaving Killian in the capable hands of Ruby. The two of them moving artfully around the floor in a way that Emma is fairly certain she will never achieve no matter how good of a partner he is.

She makes her way over to say hi to Belle and Henry and secretly hoping that Regina will engage in the project. They have more personal connections with the club than any other what with David being the team doctor, Killian the lawyer and Victor out on the ice but she knows Regina’s reputation isn’t exactly warm and fuzzy.

It works.

Regina’s praise is measured but she says she has every intention of rolling out the programme at the club (much to Henry’s delight) and she strikes Emma as a woman who keeps her word.

She catches sight of Ruby and Killian performing some sort of bizarre quickstep on the floor and laughs to herself.

‘They’re quite the team out there,’ Belle grins from beside her.

‘I’m regretting the day I ever introduced them.’

‘He’s happy.’

Emma turns her body more fully to face Belle. In the short time she has known her, she has found Belle to be warm and easy to talk to. She can see why she and Killian work so well together.

‘I am too.’

‘Well if it had anything to do with his decision to stay then thank you.’ Belle says clinking her glass with Emma’s.

‘Stay?’

‘Stay here, in the city. Turning down the San Diego offer.’ Belle’s phone buzzes giving Emma a minute to breathe. Whatever Belle is talking about she clearly thinks Emma is aware of.

‘Sorry, just my Dad,’ Belle says tucking her phone back into her clutch. ‘Is it selfish to say that I’m really glad he turned them down? I mean I know what a fantastic offer it was and the money – well I’m sure you saw it – but I love working with him.’

Emma just swallows down another mouthful of her drink still unsure of what to say. Why had he kept this from her? He always said he would be honest with her and he had kept this huge part of his life from her. She can’t do lies and secrecy. She’s been down that path before.

He catches her eyes across the room and she looks away not knowing what else to do.

He shouldn’t be giving up opportunities for her. It’s too much. She can’t cope with that kind of pressure.

She wishes it wasn’t her own party so that she could run.

\---------

He catches her eyes across the room and she looks away.

She looks away and he has absolutely no idea why.

He tells Ruby that he’s an old guy in need of a rest and excuses himself to go over to Emma. He can’t be imagining the ferocity with which she grasps the neck of her champagne flute as he approaches.

(He wishes he was.)

When he sits next to her he can’t be imagining the fact that she carefully angles her body away from his. It’s subtle, but it’s there. ‘Are you alright, love?’

She turns to him and nods with a smile on her face but he isn’t buying it. Something feels wrong. The warmth and affection from before is gone. They had been a team all evening. He hadn’t missed her message at the start of the night when she had twined her fingers with his. He’d been by her side at every opportunity because she had wanted him there and now it feels as if she wants nothing more than for him to leave her alone.

Henry leans across the table then to ask him whether he’s seen the baseball scores for the night and he finds himself being pulled into the conversation. He is truly fond of the lad and felt so proud that he had asked to buy a ticket for the event tonight, but right now he hates that Emma clearly uses it as an excuse to leave the table with Belle in tow.

He keeps up his side of the conversation with Henry although his mind is on Emma. She and Belle appear shortly afterwards and she takes to the dance floor with David. She’s beautiful as she laughs and spins in David’s arms. It’s definitely him, he gathers, whatever the problem is. She’s clearly herself in the company of David and he feels himself grow increasingly agitated.

He excuses himself and makes his way towards where they are on the dancefloor hoping that somehow she’ll prove him wrong. That all will be okay.

‘Jones, you’re just in time. I’m in need of a break,’ David announces as he steps back and gestures for Killian to take his place in hold with Emma.

He can see her tense and he’s fairly certain it breaks a part of his resolve.

‘I should really say goodbye to Mary Margaret’s boss too,’ she explains moving to follow after David.

All he can do is nod. He can’t keep doing this. He wants to shake her and ask her for once to just bloody let him in. Not this half in and half out stance they seem to have adopted. He wants all in. He wants _her_.

Suddenly he dearly wishes he weren’t driving so that he could order a rum and be done with it. He’d already had a glass of champagne during the toasts and that was enough. He moves back to their table and pulls up a chair by Victor ready to wait out the rest of the night for he knows she is unlikely to return to his side until it’s time to leave.

It’s around an hour or so later that she makes her way back to the table with the Nolans in tow. Mary Margaret is talking effusively about the evening and Emma and children and he sees Emma smile but it’s wrong, forced somehow. It doesn’t quite reach her eyes or make her nose crinkle up in the way that it should.

The car drive back is quiet, painfully so. She turns the radio on after a few minutes and he knows she must feel the awkwardness too. This isn’t them; they’re a lot of things but awkward isn’t one of them.

He puts the car into park outside her house and thinks he needs to speak now. They’d gotten ready together here at the start of the night with every intention of him staying afterward but he doubts that will be an option now. Doubts he’ll even make it inside before he walls are fully up.

She unclips her seatbelt and he can no longer sit in silence. He can’t just let this go.

‘What the hell happened, Emma?’ he asks softly. She keeps her head turned down, eyes watching the way her hands twist nervously in her lap. ‘I’m at a loss here. We’ve gone from spending a wonderful night together to this…’ he pauses struggling to find the words. ‘I can’t take this, Emma. I can’t understand why you’re suddenly acting as though we’re as close as strangers.’

She’s quiet in her seat and though there’s a part of him that just wants to reach for her, there’s a part of him that’s angry. Angry at himself, at her, at the mess that they’re in. He sighs.

'Do I at least get to know what I have done to deserve your ire tonight, love?'

There's no hesitation on her part now he has baited her so. Her head snaps up and though they’re shining with tears, there’s a fire there that tells him he’s at least pushed the right buttons to get her talking. She just needs to give him something, anything – some clue as to what has led them here.

 'Have you turned it down?'

‘What?’ He has precisely no idea what she is talking about.

'The job in San Diego. Have you turned it down?' Her hands are clenched in her lap and she looks torn between fight or flight.

'Yes'

'You shouldn't have done that.'

'Excuse me?' He asks, dumbfounded. Of all the possible reasons that had gone through his mind, this was not one of the scenarios he had imagined. He shakes his head trying to process it and she is up and out of the car in an instant. He hastily gets out of his own side to follow her.

She starts to repeat her assertion that he shouldn’t have done it when he cuts her off. 'I heard what you said, Swan I just needed a moment. Why is this bothering you?’

'Why?' She half shouts then realises her voice is raised and they are on her front lawn at some godforsaken hour. 'It's bothering me because you lied to me,’ she snaps.

'I haven't lied to you.'

'Oh that's what they all say when they don't tell you the truth.'

'You don't get to do that. You don't get to tar me with the same brush. This is about you and me, Emma. Don't confuse that.'

'No, this is about you. You've made a mistake.'

That part throws him. He takes a step closer to her and waits for her to meet his gaze. He knows she’ll see her anger reflected in his eyes now but it appears that’s what she wanted anyhow. To pick a fight. Well, she’s gone and got herself one, he thinks bitterly.

'How is it a mistake? I thought if through and I made a choice. A choice I am happy with if you'll allow it.'

'That's just it though,’ she says throwing her hands up in frustration, ‘I shouldn't have been a factor at all. I can't _allow_ anything for you. I shouldn't be able to.' Tears begin to drop onto her cheeks and he moves towards her on instinct.

'Emma, I - ' he reaches for her arm but she pulls it from his grasp

'Did you turn it down because of me?' she forces out.

He takes a breath.

'No.'

'No?'

'What do you bloody want me to say, Emma? I feel like I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't here. Of course you were part of my thinking but you were not the sole reason. I didn't realise considering the woman I love in my plans to move hours away would cause such pain.' Her expression changes from anger to sheer panic. He hasn’t said it before. He wishes he hadn’t said it in these circumstances but there it is.

He knows he has edged her towards the very brink of what she is comfortable with now but he's hurt and she isn't being _bloody fair_.

She opens and closes her mouth several times before wrapping her arms around herself. He’s taken back to when she had done it the night they had met.

(What happened.)

‘You _lied_ to me, Killian.’

‘Please, you have this thing about lies and yet you don't want the truth. I'm stuck. You have me trapped.’

‘Trapped? Oh do tell, how have I trapped you?’ she fires back at him and this time it’s her who steps closer to him. A challenge in her eyes.

And he hadn’t meant it to come out so cruelly, so carelessly. He just meant that she’s it for him, no matter what happens. No matter what she says (or doesn’t say). He knows his heart is hers.

‘I know how I feel about you, Emma. I know what I want and I'm not afraid to say it but I bloody _can't_. I can't tell you every moment of every day because you would run in the other direction. Despite everything that is between us, you would run.’ And it’s him that’s now holding back the tears. He’s as much on the edge as she is. He runs a hand through his hair. ‘I'll wait. I would wait for you. I would never pressure you but I'm just....’

‘Trapped. I've trapped you,’ she chokes out. ‘ Well then, this is me setting you free.’

She turns and takes a step and Christ, he feels himself losing her.

‘Wait, Emma. No. That's not what I...’

‘I can't give you what you want.’

She sounds so defeated and that’s worse than her anger could ever be.

‘You're what I want,’ he says fiercely, ‘and I think you want it too. You’re scared but I am not going to be somebody else who hurts you. You and me, we work. You have to take a chance and trust me at some point, Emma. Trust in us.’

‘You…you deserve somebody better. Somebody warm and open,’ she says looking anywhere but at him. He sees the tears move down her faces and curses himself for not being able to stop them. ‘You deserve someone affectionate and loveable who is ready for all of this. For a life with someone.’  

He almost doesn’t catch her final words they are spoken so quietly – ‘You deserve someone who isn’t so broken.’

How can she think she is unlovable?

‘I only want those things with you.’

She swipes shakily at the tears beneath her eyes and tries to force a smile. ‘You say that but I'm not special, Killian. You'll find someone else. Some other girl will snap you up. Fall for your winning smile and charms.’

‘Snap me up? Bloody hell, Emma. There won't just _be_ some other girl. Don't cheapen this.’

‘You're right. I am cheapening it. Just another sign that I can't do this. I can't have this. Stop trying to fix me, Killian. I'm not the girl for you.’

‘Don't tell me how I feel.’

‘Then don't tell me either. You said you would always respect me, well respect that I…’ she falters and he steals himself for the blow. He knows what is coming. ‘Respect that I can’t do this anymore.’

They’re both crying now and he feels completely worn out. He shakes his head in disbelief.

‘As you wish.’

He turns to watch her leave and sits down on the curb with his head in his hands.

What happened?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all your support with this story so far. There are good times ahead - don't worry!


	13. Chapter 13

She’s messed up. She sees that. Knows it now just assuredly as she did at the time.

She can’t erase the image of him slumped on the curb outside of her house from her mind. The hurt and the pain she has caused him.

She’d been torn between wanting to go out there and pull him close and whisper how sorry she was and wanting to throw things at the wall.

She’s furious with herself.

She’s terrible at this –at relationships- and she’s a royal idiot for thinking she could do this well. She doesn’t deserve someone like him. (It doesn’t stop her from wanting him desperately.)

And it’s not about the job, not really. It certainly came as a shock and she was hurt and confused as to why he wouldn’t tell her. No, it was the thought that he might have made the decision to stay because of _her._ She’s worried she can’t live up to the version of Emma Swan that he sees. He’s always looked at her with such wonder in his eyes. Even on that first night.

(It’s her who marvels at him. His patience and his loyalty. His sharp wit and ability to always make her smile.)

She tells herself she shouldn’t cry. That she hasn’t a right to feel upset when this is her choice and yet she can’t quite stop her emotions from spilling out when she climbs into bed. Her phone lights up several times with messages from her boss, from Mary Margaret, from David.

He doesn’t message her and it’s exactly what she deserves.

\--------

She grateful she has work the following day to keep her busy. She knows she is not looking her best but she’s fairly certain it will pass as the after effects of the party.

She responds as breezily as she can to the messages from the night before and busies herself seeing as many of the  players as possible knowing if she is left alone for too long then she won’t be able to hold herself together.

And she’s dreading having to tell somebody because she knows the looks she’ll see in their face. She doesn’t even know how she would begin to try and explain it either because the thing is, despite it all, she wants him. Desperately.

It had slipped out in sheer frustration that he’s in love with her. (She already knew this – how could she not though.) The thing is, she’s as far gone as he is. She _wants_ to be with him, wants a future together but she’s terrified. Not that he’ll hurt her – that she’ll hurt him. That her problems will get the better of her and she’ll break him because she knows deep in her very bones that he wouldn’t leave her. Killian Jones is a man of his word. She can’t do that to him though.

He’d as good as said it –she’d be trapping him. She doesn’t want that for him. She wants him to be happy. He deserves that.

She glances up at the time on her computer and sees that she has somehow made it through the day. Her head is pounding and it has very little to do with the champagne she drank last night.

She nips down the corridor to fill her bottle from the cooler so she can take another couple of Tylenol (Doctor or not she can never swallow them dry) and when she returns she finds an email from Ruby has popped up on her screen.

She clicks it open as she tosses back the pills.

_Last night was a huge success. Really proud of us! Sorry I missed you today but you seemed back to back with appointments. The photographer has sent over all of the photos so I will come and find you tomorrow. Attached a few of the highlights!_

_Rubes x_

Against her better judgement, she downloads the attachments. The first is one of her, Mary Margaret and Ruby – their smiles wide and easy. There’s a couple of her and David dancing and one of Killian and Ruby on the dance floor that makes her heart clench.

It’s the last one that takes her breath away.

She’d had no idea it was being taken. They’re standing close, so close. Their bodies practically touching at every point and he’s smiling down at her with that look of his. It’s the look on her face that stops her in her tracks. She looks completely and utterly in love. She’s gazing back at him with a soft smile on her face and her hand on his chest and it just about breaks her.

(What has she done?)

It’s another fifteen minutes before she pulls herself together enough to leave the office.

Another twenty five before she gets home and she’s exhausted.

She’s so lost in her thoughts that she doesn’t see David sitting on her front step until she’s practically stood on top of him.

‘You scared the crap out of me!’

‘Well you kind of look like crap, too.’

Only a brother would greet her so (or maybe Ruby). He’s not wrong though. There are dark smudges beneath her eyes and she looks miserable.

She has no idea what to say and she’s so tired she wishes he would leave. He won’t though. She knows him far too well and so unlocks the door and leaves it open for him to follow inside.

She drops her bag by the door and hangs her coat stalling the inevitable. She’s never taken so much care to neatly stand her boots by the door.

To his credit, David actually manages to hold his tongue until they get into the lounge. He carefully folds his leather jacket over the back of the sofa but doesn’t sit.

David Nolan is a pacer when he’s agitated or angry or hurt. Emma’s not sure which emotion she is about to face.

‘You ended things didn’t you?’ David asks and Emma averts her eyes. ‘What happened, Emma?’

She honestly doesn’t know where to start because really, this has always been coming. She’s pulled away from him before but she can’t keep doing it. It’s not fair to him and she knows this. She doesn’t want that for him.

David sighs. ‘Look, you’re scared. I get it but you can’t sabotage your own happiness like this.’

‘Don’t tell me how I feel,’ she snaps feeling on the defensive.

‘I’m not trying to.’

‘Really, because I could have sworn you were telling me how to feel about my own life.’

‘And isn’t that what you’ve done to Killian?’

That stops her in her tracks. She’s glad she’s sitting down because she feels unsteady.

‘What did he say?’

‘Nothing, Emma. He said nothing.’ David says shaking his head and she realizes he’s here as much for his friend as he is for her.

‘Then how did you –‘

‘Because I _know you_. I know you, Emma and guess what? I love you and so do Mary Margaret and Ruby and our Mom. They all know you and love you so I don’t get why you won’t let Killian do the same.’

David is almost shouting now and she swallows down the lump in her throat.

‘He loves you, Emma. I don’t care if he hasn’t said it yet – he does. The way he looks at you, you’d have to be blind to not know. He’s made his choice, Emma. Let him.’

She pushes the palms of her hands over her eyes. Could she have fucked this up any more?

‘I’ve ruined it all. He’s your friend and now I’ve -’

She feels the couch sag next to her and David’s arm come around her back.

‘Emma,’ he implores and when she turns to face him she sees that his eyes have softened. ‘Killian is my friend but you are my sister. I am always on your team. Look, if you tell me that you don’t want to be with Killian because it isn’t making you happy then I will back you one hundred percent. Always. But you’ve left him in the dark, Emma. He at least deserves an explanation.’

She nods against his chest.

She’s not sure how long they stay sat on her couch in silence but she gradually feels herself calm. David always had a way of easing her fears.

‘I didn’t want to hurt him.’

‘I think you already have,’ David says gently. ‘This isn’t what he wants, Emma but is it what you want?’

‘I want him to be happy.’ She sits a little straighter and swipes beneath her eyes.

‘You didn’t answer my question. Do you want to be apart from him?’

She swallows. ‘No.’

David runs a hand over his face in what she is pretty sure if frustration. She gets it.

‘You need to talk to him, Emma. About everything. About whatever the hell made you freak out last night and what you’re going to do to stop it happening again. This doesn’t have to be it if you don’t want it to be.’

She shakes her head. This isn’t what she wants at all but she knows how much she has hurt him. Knows the words she said.

‘You weren’t there, David. It was awful. _I_ was awful to him.’

He squeezes her hand and then the loud ringing of his phone from his jacket pocket makes them both jump.

He reaches to answer it and Emma knows it’s Mary Margaret from the grimace on his face. She’s fairly certain Mary Margaret would have tried to talk him out of coming over here tonight, or wanted to do so herself.

‘I’d better take this,’ he says stepping into the hallway.

Emma rises to make them a drink knowing that David is by no means done with her yet. But maybe she needs this. Needs him to help her see a path through the darkness she has brought down on herself.

He comes to find her in the kitchen looking thoroughly sheepish.

‘I take it Mary Margaret wasn’t aware you had come over here to kick my ass?’

‘Hey, no ass kicking has been involved.’ David moves to lean against the counter beside her. ‘She was under the impression I had agreed to come here _after_ talking to her.’

‘Under the impression, huh?’

‘Honestly, I didn’t want to wait any longer to see that you were okay.’

And that’s the long and short of it, she realises. David is here because he cares, he’s always been here because he cares. She knows Killian is the kind of man who is cut from the same cloth. That loyalty is one of his finest attributes.

She bites her lip to stop the tears from falling and tries to busy herself with finishing off making their drinks.

‘I didn’t mean to make you more upset,’ David says taking the milk from her trembling hands to pour.

‘You haven’t.’ She takes the steaming cup of coffee from him and curls her hands around its comforting warmth before giving voice to the one thing she’s truly wanted to ask since David’s arrival. ‘How is he?’

‘Lost. Sad. That’s how I knew. I went to find him to talk to him about last night. To organise the four of us going for dinner sometime to celebrate but when I asked he just shook his head and couldn’t answer me. He looked…’

David trails off as if he doesn’t want to finish his sentence for fear of hurting her. ‘He looked what, David?’

‘Devastated’

She did that. That’s on her. And god she wants nothing more than to stop him from hurting but she doesn’t know what to do. She doubts he wants to see her – how could he? – and yet a part of her knows that he’ll still be there. He is that guy for her. The one the stays (if she’ll let him).

‘If it helps, you look the same.’ She musters the energy to lightly whack David on the arm. It’s true though. It was a strange thing to look in the mirror and see emptiness staring back at you.

‘I was scared,’ she shakes her head, ‘I _am_ scared.’

‘It is scary,’ David says bumping his hip against hers. It doesn’t quite bring a smile to her lips but she does feel less alone. ‘Relationships are scary; especially when they’re the right one. I was terrified of messing it up with Mary Margaret in the beginning. God, do you remember when I rang you before I took her out on our first date?’

She does remember. How could she forget? He wrote a bullet pointed list of all the things he wanted to try and squeeze in to make it perfect. He’d appeared at Emma’s dorm room pounding on the door at seven am in the morning wanting her to check it for him.

‘Of course I remember. You were a mess.’

‘I was,’ he grins, ‘and then none of it went to plan. The heavens opened and ruined our picnic. The truck wouldn’t start. I nearly knocked myself out on the hood of the car trying to fix it.’

Emma knows the rest, knows that Mary Margaret says it was perfect anyhow.

‘I’m still scared a lot of the time. Becoming a father was the singular most terrifying moment of my life and that was despite it being everything I wanted. It’s a choice, Emma. You have to take a risk.’

‘I don’t know that I can fix this, David.’ What she really means to say is that she’s not sure she deserves to.

‘Refusing to take a risk won't get you anywhere but here, Emma. Now if you're happy with where you're at - fine. Great. That's all I want. But if you're not, if you don't have the things that make you happy in your life you need to make some changes.’

He leans forward to press a kiss to her forehead. ‘Stop pushing him away if you want him by your side.’

She does. She really does.

David stays for dinner and Emma thinks it is as much about making sure she is alright as it is about postponing returning to face Mary Margaret. When he finally leaves it’s late and she’s tired. She sends Mary Margaret a text letting her know he’s on his way.

**Finally decided to return to grovel then! X**

_He’s been brilliant tonight. I needed it._

**Now I can’t be mad at him. You know I am always here x**

_I do. Love to Leo._

She showers hoping it will wash away some of the weariness from her bones. It doesn’t and when she crawls into bed all she can think about is that Killian is alone.

He wouldn’t talk to David because of her, she knows he won’t talk to Belle because of her inadvertently telling Emma about the job and for the same reason knows he won’t have gone to Robin. She dearly hopes he has at least spoken to Liam although a selfish part of her hates that she will have lost Liam’s affection. Liam whose congratulations card for the event had arrived in the post that morning.

She almost calls him but what can she say? She knows a sorry isn’t enough when her only explanation is that she was scared.

\--------

Work had been awful. Belle clearly knew something was wrong. He looked miserable and had snapped at her incessantly for no good reason. None of this was her fault. He’ll apologise in the morning.

And then David had arrived wearing that all-American grin of his and he’d gone and talked about the four of them going out to celebrate and it was all he could do to not yell at him that it wasn’t going to happen. Not anymore. He could only shake his head against the emotion caught in his throat. David knew. Killian saw the moment realisation washed over his features.

‘Killian, I…’

‘Don’t.’ he’d choked out. David was Emma’s brother. He couldn’t get into this with him.

He can’t tell him that he feels gripped with panic that he doesn’t know how to fix this. The fear he has of a life without Emma Swan in it because he’s not quite sure how to push through this. How there’s also a bizarre sort of relief. Not at losing her, never at losing her, but a relief in the knowledge that he’s no longer waiting for the knife to fall. Of course she was going to push him away. At least the fear of the expectation is gone.

(But this is so much worse.)

And for all the light knowing her, loving her, has brought into his life he acknowledges how much he still feels in the dark. Edging past her walls is a privilege he will never take for granted but he can’t help but wish she’d run to him a little more often. He’s not sure he can cope with being pushed away every time they get closer.

He hesitates about calling Liam. In the end he does. It’s either that or the rum and he refuses to take that path again.

‘Little brother! How did it go? Did Emma get the card in time?’

He swallows. Here goes. ‘I wouldn’t know.’

‘You wouldn’t know? What do you mean you wouldn’t know? Killian, are you alright?’

He can hear the concern in his brother’s voice. How at this point he will have no doubt realised Killian had made an audio only call.

‘I don’t know what happened, Liam. I just -‘

‘Killian, I’m hanging up and calling you right back and you had better answer.’

It can’t be more than twenty seconds before the FaceTime request comes through and of course he answers. He misses his brother and he should have known that Liam would want physical confirmation that he is still in one piece.

He can see the relief wash over Liam’s face when he sees him. He looks rough but he’s clearly not inebriated or physically hurt in any way.

‘Talk to me, Killian.’

And he does. He tells Liam all that he can. Oddly, it isn’t a lot. He feels like he doesn’t really know the whole story himself.

Liam, to his credit, listens carefully throughout without showing his feelings. When Killian is finished, Liam’s voice is rough with anger. ‘Killian, you do not deserve this and do not think for one single second that you do! You did nothing wrong. Nothing.’

He sighs. ‘Liam, it’s not that simple.’

‘It never bloody is, little brother but don’t do this again. Please.’ And he wants to be angry at Liam for insinuating that he will lose himself in the same way that he did before – after Milah - but he can’t when he hears the pleading in his brother’s voice.

‘It’s not that same as before, Liam.’

‘Isn’t it, Killian? She’s being unfair and dishonest and breaking your heart. How is it not the same thing?’

And maybe it’s not really Liam he is angry at. Maybe it’s the fact that it’s been voiced aloud that his heart is in pieces but he can’t help but lash out. ‘She is not Milah, Liam. She is not married, she’s not using me, she’s hurt. This is _not_ the same thing and I am not the same person I was then.’

‘Killian, I know you’re not. I wasn’t suggesting that you –‘

‘You were, brother. You were saying that, but in case you didn’t notice, I rang you. I rang you and I am completely sober. I rang my brother because I needed your support. Not a lecture.’

Liam drags a hand over his face. ‘It’s times like this I really feel just how many miles away you are.’

And just like that he feels his anger float away. He couldn’t agree more. ‘Aye.’

‘I’m sorry, little brother. I love you and I’m hurting if you’re hurting. You know I just want what’s best for you.’

‘I know.’ The problem is that what’s best for him is the life he was making with Emma and he doesn’t know how to fix that.

\--------

David’s out of town for a few days at some conference or other and Killian hates how grateful he is for that fact. He has no idea what to even say to him. If David were sympathetic he knows he would end up asking how Emma is. He doesn’t know how that would help despite him wanting desperately to ask. If David lectured him about not giving up on his sister then he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from saying that that is all he wants to do but pushing her, pushing Emma, is perhaps the least beneficial thing he can do. She backed him into a corner asking him to respect her decision anyhow.

It’s a mess.

He’s a mess.

He’d reluctantly agreed to dinner at Robin’s place and both he and Regina can clearly tell something is wrong. They don’t mention the event at all, or ask after Emma so they’ve clearly put enough of the pieces together. He doesn’t really know what he would say anyhow. (He hardly knows how they’ve got to here himself.)

And spending time with Roland briefly works its make Killian forget. He adores that boy and his childish glee for just about everything and everyone and yet it doesn’t stop Killian from excusing himself not long after dinner is finished. He says he wants to work on his presentation for Friday hoping Regina will approve of the fact but even she looks a little regretful at his leaving.

He’s not lying. He does in fact go home to work on the case he’s presenting on Friday. It’s a huge deal - proposing a new addendum to the way in which the transfers of youth players are handled across the state. It follows on from the way in which Henry’s case had been handled and he knows it is right and just, and the bloody _legal_ way for things to be handled, but it doesn’t stop him wanting to have everything just so. He believes in this. This is why he chose this field. Corny as it sounds, this can make a difference to the lives of some of the young players in the game.

He needs it this week too. Needs something positive to lose himself in because if he gives himself just a minute to breathe then the last week hits him afresh and he feels himself being pulled under.

Liam’s taken to ringing every day and it helps if only a little. They don’t speak of Emma again but they may as well. That is after all why his brother’s calls are coming thick and fast. He loves him for it despite his rather sanctimonious ways.

Liam, he knows, is his calm in the storm. Always has been and always will be and Killian tries desperately to tell himself that it’s enough.

\--------

She’s early for Wednesday lunch needing to escape the clinic and the well intentioned chatter of the players about the event. Every time, every damn time, it is mentioned all she can see is the image of the two of them dancing.

She’s barely sat down before the bell jingles above the door signalling Mary Margaret and Leo’s arrival. With David out of town for a conference, Mary Margaret had arranged weeks ago to snag his spot for Wednesday lunch. And it’s the first time she’s seen her since the event, since she has so tremendously ballsed everything up, and she feels a sudden rush of gratitude for the fact that her brother and sister-in-law cannot keep anything from one another. She can’t explain it again. It was painful enough with David (and then Ruby).

‘Hey, you.’

‘Hey,’ she stands to greet her and coo over Leo’s rosy cheeks as Mary Margaret gets herself settled.

‘I wasn’t sure you would come.’

‘I haven’t deliberately tried to avoid you but I-‘ she breaks off shaking her head.

A hand reaches over the table to squeeze hers. ‘I get it. You’re hurting.’

‘I’m sorry I kind of put a downer on the event. I know you guys wanted to go out and celebrate. Maybe we can do it sometime soon.’ She doesn’t feel like celebrating much but hates that she’s burst the bubble of their success with her actions.

‘When you’re ready,’ Mary Margaret says lightly picking up the menu. She may brush off her support and her complete acceptance as minor. It isn’t. Emma knows this. Mary Margaret has come to know her just about as well as anyone over the years and Emma suddenly feels the urge to talk. For all her well intentioned meddling from time to time, her sister-in-law is an excellent listener.

‘I don’t know how to fix it,’ she says chewing at her lower lip.

‘Do you want to?’

‘Yes.’

The word is out of her mouth before she knows it. That’s not what she’s hesitant about, it’s not her feelings for him that she’s doubting.

‘What’s stopping you from trying then?’

How can she possibly begin to explain? But she thinks she needs to try. Perhaps Mary Margaret can offer her some perspective.  ‘I’m scared.’

‘I get that.’

‘No, but it’s not just that I’m scared about the relationship. I’m scared if I can somehow… if there’s a way that I manage to fix this, I’m scared I’ll run from him again and I _can’t_ -‘ Defiant tears trace over her cheeks, ‘I _can’t_ do that to him.’

‘You love him.’

She swipes at her face and realises that it isn’t a question but she nods back at her friend anyway.

‘David mentioned about the job offer.’

She shakes her head. ‘I never even said congratulations. This amazing thing happened for him and I didn’t even tell him how proud I am of him. It just reminded me of the lies I’d been told before. When people say they want me forever, it’s always a temporary thing.’

It had brought back so many feelings, and it wasn’t just Neal. It was every foster family who had promised her a family only to give her back. To give up on her.

‘But I thought he’d turned the offer down,’ her friend prompts gently.

‘He did and I just panicked. I finally had someone put me first and that never happens to me. I’ve never had that before. I didn’t know what to do. I was so certain I would mess it up that he’d end up leaving anyhow.’

‘So you thought you’d push him away first.’

She shrugs. She knows how unreasonable it sounds.

‘You should ask him, you know.’ At her confused expression, Mary Margaret elaborates. ‘David mentioned that he’d said you weren’t the only reason he’d turned down the job. Maybe you should ask what they were. Maybe it would ease the pressure you feel. Killian has never struck me as someone who is dishonest so if he says there are other reasons there must be other reasons.

‘Do you reckon David hopes he’s one of those reasons?’ she jokes through a watery smile.

Mary Margaret rolls her eyes as the waitress arrives and they order.

Maybe Mary Margaret is right. Maybe it would help. She owes him a chance to explain anyhow. (If he still wants to see her. To hear from her.)

‘Have you thought about getting away for a few days?’

Her friend’s question jolts her from her thoughts. ‘Away?’

‘It might help to clear your head. If you don’t want to keep running then maybe you need to take some time and get a little perspective.’

‘How would that be different to running?’

‘Well it wouldn’t be if you didn’t tell him where you were going and why.’ Mary Margaret pauses choosing her next words carefully. ‘If you’re truly done with running from him then I think you might need to confront some of the reasons why you run in the first place.’

And Emma realises with an alarming clarity that her friend is right. She does need to work through some things. She can’t keep losing herself in her head. The thought terrifies her. It’s just  not as terrifying as the thought of not having Killian in her life.

\--------

She’d come to the conclusion by the end of Wednesday lunch to take some of her annual leave as soon as she could. After speak to her boss, it turned out her leave could start in a week’s time. She gets on with her boss, respects him and he does her, but she’s not sure she could have swung the leave on such short notice were it not for the positive publicity garnered by the event.

She’d rung Ruth asking if her old room would be available for a week. The delight in her voice making Emma think she might just be making the right call.

She’d also come to the conclusion that she needed to talk to Killian before she left. In person. To tell him that she was prepared to fight for them. To tell him that she didn’t want to run anymore.

She just didn’t know how to do it. She’d almost driven to his apartment that night before looking at the late hour and deciding it probably wasn’t for the best.

And so she finds herself anxiously tapping her foot while waiting for the absurd health drink he adores from the place next to their training ground to be prepared. She’s fairly certain a juice won’t fix anything but it gave her another five minutes to build up courage. She’s got this far.

‘Emma!’

She turns at the call of her name to see Henry enter the café. He’s fresh from finishing training with his damp hair still plastered to his forehead.

‘Henry,’ she smiles, ‘it’s good to see you.’

‘And you. Thanks again for letting me come the other night.’

‘Henry, you bought a ticket. I should be the one thanking you.’

He throws his head when he laughs and it reminds her of _him_. She’s always found it an oddly endearing trait. God, she misses him terribly.

‘Is that for Killian?’ he nods towards the juice the worker pushes across the counter to Emma.

She can only nod.

‘You might just catch him before the meeting.’

It’s today. His meeting to push through the addendum. How could she forget? She glances at her watch vaguely hearing Henry saying how he’s going to wait around to hear the outcome. How much it means to him that the club is fighting for young players like himself. It starts in fifteen minutes. She can’t do this now. It would be completely unfair to him.

‘Can you give it to him?’ she says holding the juice out for Henry.

He looks puzzled as to why she would come this far to not see him.

She lies.

‘I got caught in traffic coming over here and I’m already pushing it to get back in time for my next appointment.’

‘Oh sure, of course I can. It was good to see you, Emma.’ He says as she moves to leave, ‘I’ll let Killian know for you.’

All she can do is nod. As she sits in her car she remembers the damn pizza she’s paid for to be delivered to Killian’s place tonight.

She hangs her forehead on the steering wheel to catch her breath.

Inhale

She should cancel it.

Exhale

She won’t cancel it, she thinks. If he throws it into the trash then that’s his call.

It’s gone eight o’clock when her phone lights up.

**Thank you for my dinner, Emma.**

**And the juice.**

It can’t be normal for two text messages to make her heart race so quickly but she doesn’t question it further. Just picks up her phone to type out a reply.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas! Thank you for all of your comments and support for this story.


	14. Chapter 14

He stares down at the open pizza box in disbelief. It’s a pizza. Just a pizza and yet it leaves him speechless. He stares down at the message written in red and green peppers across the top of the cheese – Well done, Jones! And he knows it is Emma. It can only be Emma. Nobody else would have a custom pizza delivered to his door. (A vegetarian pizza at that.)

He misses her.

Wishes she was here to celebrate and share this pizza with him. She _should_ be here.

He won’t admit to taking a photo of it before he pulls out a slice but he smiles down at the image on his phone anyhow. This is his Emma. Thoughtful and funny and confident. If only she could see that too.

He flips through the channels before settling on a recorded football game. He eats three slices with a glass of beer in hand and realises half time has arrived without him even noticing. His thoughts entirely on Emma.

First the juice and then this. And really he imagines the pizza must have been ordered before all of this happened but she’d been and bought the damn juice for him today.

Luckily, Henry didn’t catch him before the meeting. He’d found the juice waiting for him on his desk after it had finished with a note in handwriting he didn’t recognise saying it was from Emma. It wasn’t until Henry had come barrelling in five minutes later that he understood. Or at least understood how it had come to arrive on his desk. He was still none the wiser about what it meant.

She might not have made it to see him and yet it still feels like something. Feels a lot like hope and he knows Emma well enough to know she doesn’t deal out false hope.

He’s typed out three messages to her. None of which he has sent.

He jumps when his phone begins to vibrate in his hand.

Liam.

‘Little brother!’

‘Liam’

‘You’re at home,’ Liam acknowledges looking over Killian’s shoulder to the familiar décor, ‘God, Killian. I’m sorry. I thought you had it in the bag. They don’t know what –‘

He laughs. ‘They went for it Liam.’

‘Wait, what? Why are you at home then and not out celebrating?’

‘We did celebrate at the office. Regina pulled out the whiskey she keeps hidden away from us 99% of the time. Had a nice little toast and then I came home. Roland has a sleepover tonight and Belle has a new guy and,’ he shrugs. As amazing as it is, what he and Belle and the club have achieved, pizza and a beer is just what he wants right now.

‘Okay,’ Liam says. Killian knows he’s holding his tongue. Imagines that Elsa is probably somewhere in the room shooting daggers at him as a threat to not say more. ‘Well, congratulations you bloody brilliant human. I’m so proud of you.’

He laughs as Liam puckers up and presses a kiss to the screen.

‘You daft sod.’

‘Really, little brother. It’s amazing.’

‘Aye.’ He says picking up another slice of pizza.

Liam asks if it’s the usual they get from the place nearby when he visits.

‘Well, no.’ And this is slightly awkward. ‘It was actually a custom made congratulations pizza.’

‘A what? Killian, you’re blushing. Who made you a...’ Liam trails off realising who it must be from. ‘Are you two talking again then?’

‘I don’t really know. No, I guess since I haven’t spoken to her.’

‘But she’s having food delivered to your house?’

‘And she brought me a juice from the place by the training ground I like today. She bumped into Henry and he brought it in. I don’t know what she’s trying to say.’ It sounds a little ridiculous when he says it aloud. They’re adults, not in kindergarten, but if pizza toppings are the only communication gets, he’ll still take it.

‘Ask her then.’

‘Ask her what?’

‘Ask her what it means. Look, brother I know how I feel about this situation but you say she’s different. That you and her are different, so ask.’

He nods. Liam is right. He can’t _not_ try. Not when it’s Emma. A man unwilling to fight for what he wants and all.

When the call finishes he texts her quickly before he can overthink it.

**Thank you for my dinner, Emma.**

_Crap_. He forgot about the drink.

**And the juice.**

He forces himself to put his phone down. He’ll drive himself crazy watching for those three little dots.

His phone lights up barely ten seconds later.

_You’re welcome, Killian. How did it go? You got it agreed, right?_

It strikes him then that she’d ordered the message before she knew the outcome. That she’d believed he could do this.

**We got it.**

_I knew you would._

**I’m glad one of us did.**

He has to force himself to not put ‘love’. Talking to her is brilliant. This is a start but he’s not sure he can do ‘half in’ when it comes to Emma.

_I didn’t doubt it._

It does something to him, reading her words. It’s the same feeling he gets when Liam’s proud of him. Pleasing the people you love, making them proud.

_Can I call? I get that you might be out celebrating. Just maybe let me know when is good._

_If that’s something you want._

It is. It’s exactly what he wants. **Now is good.**

He pulls the phone to his ear as it buzzes.

‘Hey’

‘Hey’

She’s quiet on the other end. This was never going to be the easiest thing.

‘The pizza is delicious. Thanks again. Looked great.’

‘Oh yeah?’

Of course - she hasn’t seen it. ‘Yeah, I have a photo. I can-‘

‘You do?’

‘I, yeah I do.’

He swears he can hear a smile in her voice when she says she’d like to see it.

‘So you wanted to call?’ He knows it’s not the most subtle way of moving the conversation on but he’s hopeful (and more than a little anxious).

Her voice is quiet when she speaks but Killian feels her words roar in his ears nevertheless. ‘I did. You know I realised I never told you I was proud of you the other night.’

‘Oh,’ he says thickly.

‘And I am, Killian. Proud of you, that is. The offer sounded fantastic.’ She pauses. ‘I should have told you that sooner.’

‘Thank you for telling me now.’

‘Can you tell me a little about it? The offer I mean.’

‘Swan,’ he breathes, ‘I don’t know what you want me to say.’ He doesn’t want to fight about this again. He can’t.

‘Killian, I’m not asking to yell at you or to pick a fight. I’m trying to do what I should have,’ she pauses again and this time he can hear the heavy exhale she makes on the other end of the line, ‘You deserve to get to talk about this amazing thing that happened to you and I took that away from you so…’

He tells her then. About the offer. The complete surprise of it. Sharing it with Belle. Reading the damn thing over to make sure it was real. Turning it down the following day. She listens without interruption beside the odd hum of agreement and it feels good just knowing she is there on the other end of the line.

When she does speak, her words come out in a nervous rush. ‘Can I ask why you did? Turn it down, that is. I know you said there were other reasons. I get if you don’t want to share them. I don’t deserve it but I-‘

‘Swan,’ he soothes halting the words tumbling from her mouth. ‘I did have my reasons. I don’t mind saying that. I wanted to say it the other night.’

‘I know.’

‘Football, well ‘soccer’, had always been the dream. It’s the sport I grew up watching and playing and _loving_ alongside Liam. We didn’t always have a lot but a ball was all we needed and we were away; a kick about in the street or a game in the local park. The opportunity that came up in New York after everything that happened with Milah was exactly what I wanted then, but not now. This team, this city. I’m happy here. I have great colleagues and friends, great opportunities like today. My life has been upturned too many times before and I didn’t want to start over again.’

He takes another sip of his beer to give himself a moment.

‘And I know it sounds daft but the time difference between here and London is doable. Liam and I have found a routine and it works. Adding another five hours to that, well I didn’t want to make it more difficult to talk to him or more difficult to get back there to see him.’

‘That’s not a daft reason,’ she says softly.

‘Aye, well I wouldn’t tell the git that myself but there you have it and then there was…’ he stops himself. _You._ There was you.

‘Me’

‘Aye, you.’

She’s silent on the other end processing his words.

‘God, Emma. Do you want me to, do you…’ He can tell her, he can tell her why she was part of the reason. He can’t tell her if it will push her away.

‘I can’t ask that of you, Killian.’ She clearly knows exactly what he is offering. Sounds so upset.

He is too.

‘I offered.’

Another pause until he hears a watery laugh. ‘Sorry, I’m an idiot. I nodded.’

He smiles a little wishing he could have seen for himself. ‘There was you, Emma. You and me and the happiness I have felt since you came into my life. You’re a part of the reason this place feels like home to me now and I value that in my life.’

Should he be saying valued? He dearly hopes it isn’t past tense. There’s more of course and he might as well say it now. If this is the only chance he gets he should say it.

‘Meeting you was one of the best things to ever happen to me and the idea of being five hours away from you didn’t sound particularly appealing. I should have told you about the offer, Emma. I’m sorry for that,’ he takes a breath, ‘but I’m not sorry for putting my happiness first because that’s why I chose to say. I’d be happier here than alone on the West Coast.’

He can tell she’s crying when she speaks again and this _can’t_ be goodbye. If this is goodbye, he knows he’ll be at her door within the hour. He’ll respect her, he’ll always respect her wishes but she’d tried to come to him today and he’s prepared to meet her halfway. He’ll fight for it.

‘I value you too, you know. I… I know it might not seem that way. I know that, but I do. Please believe me when I say that, Killian.’

He knows he’s holding back his own tears now too. ‘I do, Emma.’

‘Good’

‘Good’

‘You deserve more than a conversation over the phone. I can’t begin to even explain how sorry I am. How much I,’ her breath hitches, ‘I was never the one good with words.’

‘You’re doing just fine, love.’

‘I want to try and explain to you why I ran. Why I run. But I should do that in person, Killian. I tried today, you know with the drink but then the timing and…’

‘I know. I knew.’ Or he’d hoped he’d known.

‘Is that something that you’d want?’ And the hesitance in her voice crushes him. He’s hurting. He’s hurt and confused and a little angry but it doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to see her. That he wouldn’t listen to her.

‘It is, Emma. Very much so.’

‘Good’

‘Good’

‘I have an away game tomorrow, I’m sorry.’

‘I know and then I’m going camping with Roland.’

‘You are?’

‘Aye.’ And he’d been looking forward to it. At this moment, he dearly wishes it were another weekend.

‘Okay. You have a game on Monday, right?’

‘I do.’ Damn it. Why is this so hard? It never felt so hard before. Not when they just showed up at one another’s door. He wants to say, screw it, that he’ll see her in his lunch hour on Monday but he needs to be at the game and he doesn’t know how it will go and – damn it.

‘Tuesday?’

‘Tuesday.’

‘I’ll ring you then, we could maybe go for a walk?’

‘I’d like that.’

‘Okay, I’ll call you then. Thank you, Killian. For talking to me.’

_Always_ , he thinks. ‘Goodnight, Emma.’

‘Goodnight, Killian.’

He hangs up and feels like he’s run a marathon.

\-------

And god, when he called her ‘love’ she nearly fell apart. She’d known, heard the way in which he’d stopped himself from saying it before. And it’s a Killian thing, she knows that. Has always known it and yet when it’s her and him. When it’s _them._ It’s different.

He talks to her, really talks and she’ll forever be grateful that he even answered the phone. She shouldn’t have doubted him.

(He’d taken a photo of the damn pizza.)

She listens. It helps. It helps to ease the self-doubt and her fears. Just hearing his voice helps. Mary Margaret was right though. Knowing the reasons why he hadn’t taken the offer had relieved the pressure she put on herself and their relationship in her mind. His reasons were honest and justified.

She feels completely ashamed at her actions the other night but it does strengthen her resolve. She can’t do that again. To him. To them. She can’t push lifelong insecurities onto their relationship. She does need to get away. To confront some things in her past so that she can have the future she wants. She can’t keep patching long term problems with short term solutions.

She wants him. She wants the future for them she knows he’ll have tucked away in his mind somewhere. She doesn’t want him to have to hold back his feelings for fear or her pulling away. Not when it’s what she wants to.

She’s prepared to fight for him and now she thinks he might just let her.

‘I want to try and explain to you why I ran. Why I run. But I should do that in person, Killian. I tried today, you know with the drink but then the timing and…’

‘I know. I knew.’

She’d hoped he’d known but what she doesn’t know is if he’s ready to see her. If that’s something he wants or is ready for. ‘Is that something that you’d want?’

‘It is, Emma. Very much so.’

Words can’t quite do justice to the way in which her heart soars. She has a chance. He’s _not_ like the others and she thinks she knew that already but this is him choosing to fight for her. This is everything.

‘Good’

‘Good’

‘I have an away game tomorrow, I’m sorry.’

‘I know and then I’m going camping with Roland.’

‘You are?’

‘Aye.’

‘Okay. You have a game on Monday, right?’ Why is this so hard? Maybe she should rip the bandage off and go there now but she has the game tomorrow and their emotions are already stretched.

‘I do.’

‘Tuesday?’ she offers. They really can’t do this in a lunch hour. She knows that now. She’s not quite sure what she’d been hoping for today. She just missed him.

‘Tuesday.’

‘I’ll ring you then, we could maybe go for a walk?’ Walking might help. Might help to shed her nerves.

‘I’d like that.’

‘Okay, I’ll call you then. Thank you, Killian. For talking to me.’

‘Goodnight, Emma.’

‘Goodnight, Killian.’

She sleeps better than she has all week.

She awakes to an image of the pizza. It looks ridiculous.

It makes her happier than she’s felt all week.

She replied to tell him it looks ridiculous and that she’s glad it tasted better than it looked.

He wishes her good luck for the game and she makes a note to let him know how it went. He seems open to this, to them messaging one another, and if it helps to bridge the space she’s put between them before Tuesday then she’s all in.

The game is a game and half with both teams going all out in an attempt to secure third place in the league. Emma’s called onto the field with a ligament sprain and then again to attend to a laceration on a forearm. It’ll need stitches after the game but it will hold him throughout the rest of play.

And so it’s later, much later, when she gets to message Killian. They’d won – just. She’s exhausted after the journey back to their ground and fires up the heater in her bug after saying her goodbyes. She would have messaged then if her fingers had been warm enough to function but it’ll have to wait.

Her place is cold and she curses herself for forgetting to set the thermostat that morning. She heads up to change into something comfier and warmer and spies Killian’s sweatshirt in her drawer. She’d refused to let herself wear it this past week. Too afraid of how it would make her feel. The memories it would bring to the surface. She pulls it out now and fingers the soft material before pulling it over her head. There’s hope now, she thinks. They have hope.

Curled up on her couch, she pulls out her phone and smiles at the pictures of Leo that Mary Margaret has sent to her. Her personal favourite being the one where David is holding him up to watch Emma on the screen during the match.

_The game went well. Wishing I had got myself a pizza right now!_

**It was a bloody great game.**

_You watched?_

**I did.**

**Please tell me you aren’t having microwave mac and cheese for your dinner.**

As if on cue, the microwave dings signalling that her dinner of mac and cheese is in fact ready and waiting. Is it too much to send him a photo of it? She goes for it.

And she knows the kind of response she would normally get – some comment or other about that being the Swan he knows or a quip that he’s on his way over to save her from the perils of processed food. Both options seem too familiar now and so she’s not surprised when he merely responds with a ‘Ha’.

She changes the subject. Asks if he’s ready for camping. Wants to tease him to say that the survival kit in his ‘boot’ will finally come in handy but she doesn’t. And this is hard. Talking but not really being them.

She lets the sleeves of his sweatshirt fall down over her hands comforting herself in its warmth. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year! Thank you for taking the time to read, comment and leave kudos for this story. It's very appreciated.


	15. Chapter 15

Camping is good. Camping is great. It reminds him of his brother and it’s good to get away. Clear his head a bit because bloody hell has the last couple of days left his emotions reeling.

Robin had clapped him on the back when Killian had gone to pick the two of them up that morning and told him he looked ‘brighter’. Whatever that means, he certainly feels a little brighter. He still has a knot of anxiety in his stomach about Tuesday. Still not entirely sure what it will bring but Emma’s _trying_. She’s trying and that means something.

In some sort of unspoken agreement, Robin hasn’t asked and Killian hasn’t said. He’s been talking to Liam about it all (and by proxy, Elsa) and he just needs _this_ from Robin. His friendship, his quiet understanding.

It doesn’t stop Loxley from raising an eyebrow at him when he snaps a few pictures of their campsite for the night and sends them to Emma. He thinks Robin has become too astute at reading people after spending so long in the company of his wife.

‘Liam,’ he says hastily.

Robin just laughs.

It’s not a complete lie. He does send a shot to Liam but that’s later, much later.

He ends up telling Robin about the job offer over a few beers shared around the campfire. It’s on the cusp of today turning into tomorrow and they should both be turning in knowing they have to be up early to make the drive home in the morning. Roland fast asleep in the tent to their left. Thoroughly worn out after a day of fishing and den building.

‘Well I’m bloody glad you’re staying, Jones.’ Robin smiles at him leaning over to clink Killian’s beer with his own. ‘You’re doing a fantastic job at the club and, well I might miss your sorry arse I suppose.’

Their laughter rings out in the night air before Robin shushes them both so as not to wake Roland.

‘You’re happy, right? With your decision?’

‘Aye, I am.’ He is. He really is. Even if things weren’t to change between he and Emma. As hard as it would be to be so near to her and not with her, this place is his home now.

He’s back at the front door to his own apartment before half past seven the following morning. He passes a male he doesn’t recognise coming in the opposite direction who seems far too happy for such an hour on a dark morning. Killian smirks to himself and realises that the other guy probably had a similar thought to Killian returning at this time. Instead he’d been camping with his friend’s five year old. He chuckles to himself and checks his post. Showering quickly, he’s back out the door in forty minutes.

His phone lights up with a message from Emma (his heart might just light up a bit too).

_Hope you guys had a good night. Good luck for the game._

Tomorrow can’t come soon enough.

The game is great. They win. Truth be told, he’s not sure that a loss could have dampened the hope blooming inside him. He can’t wait to see Emma tomorrow, despite how hard it might be.

He knows her.

He knows her and he knows that she wouldn’t be texting him and talking to him and asking about his day, were she wanting to walk away.

And there’s things he needs to say to her. Things he needs for her to hear but Christ does he just want to see her and hold her.

Liam knows. Knows he is to see Emma the following day. He’d told him late Monday night after finalising his meeting notes for the following day. And he hadn’t really meant to, uncertain as to Liam’s true feelings on the matter, but it had slipped out anyhow.

‘I think this is good, Liam. I can feel it.’

Liam’s quiet on the other end of the line.

‘I know there are things that need to be said but this is a step forward. I know Emma and this…’ he tails off. He can’t quite put it into words. David would get it. David would understand what this is - for _Emma_ to be doing this - but his brother doesn’t know her beyond a few snatched Skype moments.

He knows _of her_ from Killian of course, but it’s not the same thing. He’s fairly certain nothing can compare to knowing Emma. Not in his eyes, at least.

‘Killian,’ Liam sighs, ‘I’m with you. If you say this is a good thing – I’m with you. Can you just promise to be honest about how this affected you? I know you want to be with her. I do. I just don’t want this to happen to you again.’

He can’t really fault Liam for his concern. He’s been devastated by Emma pulling away from him. He knows this. He also knows that Liam is right. There are things he needs to hear from her. Promises to not push him away. To not leave him in the dark.

‘Aye, brother. I dare say I can manage that.’

It’s pouring down with rain as he leaves for work the following morning. The kind of rain that seems ceaseless, the type that makes you question if the heavens aren’t revolting against the land. His journey slow as traffic crawls around the puddles breaching the roads. The windows laced with condensation. He sees his phone light up on the dash once, twice but he won’t tear his gaze from the road.

And it must only be twenty meters from his parking bay to the entrance doors at work, but he’s soaked to the bone. Belle laughs at him as he approaches his office.

‘And here I was led to believe you Brits were always prepared for rain.’ She herself, looks remarkably dry while Killian leaves a puddle on the floor.

‘This isn’t a spot of English rain,’ he huffs. ‘I’m half expecting to see Noah and his ark to go past the window before too long.’

‘Here,’ Belle says with her hand outstretched, ‘Go switch your shirt out and I’ll put your jacket to dry.’

‘You, Lady Belle, are an angel.’

She pulls a face at the soggy suit jacket he hands to her but she ruffles his sopping hair with affection. ‘I expect a week’s worth of coffees in recompense.’

‘And I’d expect nothing less. Give me twenty minutes and then we can meet to go through notes for this afternoon.’

Belle nods her ascent and hastens off with his jacket.

He always keeps a couple of clean shirts in his office and it’s when he retrieves his phone form the sodden pocket of his white dress shirt that he sees the two messages still awaiting his attention.

They’re both from Emma. One a picture message he’s curious about.

He opens it and laughs. All frustration with the weather forgotten.

It’s a picture of a woman from behind – purple umbrella, bag and coat.

_It might not be head to toe but it’s pretty close! ;)_

And gods, he’d forgotten about it. The call he’d made to her all that time ago when in New York. The woman wearing so much purple, she’d rather looked like she’d strolled off the set of Harry Potter.

**Brilliant, lass. I needed that after getting washed away this morning.**

_I’ve checked the forecast. It should have cleared up for later._

Later. It can’t come soon enough. He hates that her mentioning it relieves some of the tension in his chest. She's not backing out.

**I’ll brave the weather regardless**

He can picture the eye roll that would no doubt go alongside the flush in her cheeks. She never knew quite what to do with a compliment.

**But hopefully my jacket will have dried out by then…**

_That bad?_

**I’ve had to change!**

**4 o’clock for later?**

_Yeah, my last client for the day is at 3.00 so I should get there on time._

**See you then**

_See you then_

He heads in search of caffeine for he and Belle and their morning meetings fly by. He loves working alongside her. She’s bright and quick-witted and her instincts are sharp. If he does ever leave, he’d want to take her with him. She’s an absolute asset. Her warmth and determination matching his charm and loyalty.

Nevertheless, he still finds himself pouring over the details for the afternoon's meeting once more. Things are progressing beautifully with the addendum. So much so that other sports are interested in how it can be adapted to protect their young players in the city. It’s a big meeting. He knows the details inside out but the repetition is easing the adrenaline he always feels prior to a ‘big one.’

'Killian, there's a phone call for you.' 

'Can you take a message?' He asks barely looking up. He doesn't need a distraction.

'Killian,' Belle says forcefully enough for him to look up. 

His heart stops when he sees her face. Something is wrong. 

When she speaks again her voice is softer, 'You're going to want to take the call.' 

He nods at her. Feels the bile rising in his throat. 

The light flashes on his office phone signalling that Belle has transferred the call. 

He picks it up. Notes the way his hand isn't quite steady. 

'Killian Jones spea-'

'Killian, thank god.'

He knows that voice. Can only think of one reason why Ruby Lucas would be calling him at work. 

He feels his composure begin to break.

_Emma_

Ruby is talking on the other end of the line but he can't make out her words over the rush of blood in his head. He pinches his forehead willing his pulse to slow. Ruby's panicked words are spilling into one and he can't make sense of it. He needs to know Emma is alright. She has to be.

'Ruby!' 

His shout stuns her into silence.

'Lass, slow down. Is Emma hurt?'

'No, Killian. She's okay.'

His breath rushes out of him.

'She's okay?'

'She's okay.'

He lets the words wash over him. Whatever it is he'll deal with it. He can deal with it if she's alright. 

'Killian, she...have you seen the news?'

What does the news have to do with anything?

'What's happened?'

'It's Neal.'

His heart sinks. Of course it bloody is.

'He's been in an accident. A bad one. They think he might not make it.' 

He types Neal Cassidy into his search bar and pulls up the latest news stories. He grimaces at the pictures of the wrecked car. If that's the wreckage they've pulled Neal from, he can't imagine he's in a good way and for all he has come to detest the man, he doesn’t want this for him.

'And Emma?'

'The news came over the screens in the cafeteria and she just kind of fled to her office. I think she's having some sort of panic attack and now she won't come out and I just...I don't know what to do.' He hears the defeat in Ruby's voice.

'I'll come, Ruby.' He's saying as he stands and switches his computer screen off. He grabs his (now dried) jacket from the back of his chair and swings it on resting the phone between his cheek and his shoulder. 'I'll be there in twenty minutes at most.'

'Thank you,' comes Ruby's honest reply. 'David's out of town and I can't get hold of Mary Margaret. I know that the two of you aren't...that she's pushed you away but you're the only one I could think of who might get through to her and -'

'Ruby, it's alright. It doesn't mean I don't care. I'm on my way.' 

They're not together but it doesn't mean she's still not the most important person to him. It doesn't mean he won't show up for her.

Belle is standing by her desk nervously awaiting the outcome of his call. 'What can I do?'

'I need you to be me in this meeting.'

She looks momentarily taken aback but then nods with determination in her eyes. 'Are your final documents on your desk?'

'Aye, and make sure that you carefully link it the precedents from the Gilmore case and -'

'Killian,' Belle cuts him off with a squeeze of his arm, 'Go. I've got this.'

He nods and dashes to his car. Emma was right, the weather has eased off. It’s earthy scent the only remain. There'll be grovelling to with Regina later but he doesn't care as much as he should right now. He needs to get to her. 

He forces himself to not go over the speed limit on the way there. Uses it as a way to keep his focus in check. This is the exact kind of situation in which Emma will raise up her walls and batten down the hatches. It worries him that she wouldn't let Ruby in. It worries him that she might push more people away. That somehow (inexplicably) she'll blame herself for this. 

He pulls into the parking lot of the training complex and all but runs across the graveled entrance way. 

Ruby is there to meet him inside and she pulls him into a fierce hug. 'Thank you.'

'How long has she been in there?'

'About half an hour I think. I've tried talking to her but she won't respond. I've sent the site manager to find the spare key. I know that sound crazy, but I just need to know she’s alright.'

'She's locked it?'

Ruby nods sadly as they approach her office door.

He notes that the area is largely clear from people. Likely Ruby's doing knowing her friend would not want an audience.

He steps up to the door and knocks gently, 'Swan, it's me. I need you to let me in,' he says gently as he rests his forehead to the door.

He's prepared to tell her that he will have to break the door down (damn, the bill) if she doesn't give them a sign that she's okay. Prepared to say that he'll get himself to the first floor window and get in that way if needs be.

He doesn't need to. 

The door softly clicks unlocked and the relief in the air is palpable. Ruby meets his eyes and he sees his own emotions reflected in them. 

He gently turns the door handle and let's himself in. 

 

\--------

It was as if her world had turned in on itself and she’d suddenly found it hard to breathe. She knew, distantly, that it was Ruby’s hand on her forearm, saw her friend’s lips working and the concern etched on her brow but she couldn’t make sense of any of it. Could only see that car, that car that Neal was in, wrapped around the street light.

She’d fled. Desperately seeking some air, some space, some sense. Privacy away from the concerned gazes of her colleagues and the harsh, unfeeling reality of the news images.

She knew the signs – the light-headedness and the tightening in her chest. Knew she needed to claw some clarity back.

Pushing her office door shut behind her, she’d thumbed the lock shut on the second attempt and haphazardly pulled out a series of drawers until she’d found the sick bag she was looking for. Gasping for breath, she’d slumped to the floor beside her office door losing her balance. Knowing she needed to pull some air into her lungs, she’d used the wall the straighten her back against it and clutched the paper bag to her face feeling the steadying pulse of it moving in and out pulling her back to some sort of reality.

She’d kept her eyes focused on the window outside, felt the chill on her clammy skin as her breathing began to even out.

At some point, she registered Ruby’s voice but she couldn’t respond. The words wouldn’t come and her limbs felt too heavy to move.

She’s not sure how much time has passed when it’s his voice that she hears. Low and warm and _loving._  'Swan, it's me. I need you to let me in.’

Slowly, she reaches up to click the lock on the door.

He steps inside to find her on the floor leaning back against the wall by the door. She feels him slide down the wall to sit beside her, mirroring her position.

And he’s right beside her, but it’s Killian and so he doesn’t overstep. Doesn’t touch her. He’s waiting for her and so she does the only thing she can think of reaches across to tangle her fingers with his where they rest on his knees.

He is what she needed. Her anchor in the storm. He edges closer until their pressed together side to side. She feels him shrug out of his jacket and drape it around her shoulders.

He adjusts the collar to wrap her better in its warmth and it’s only then that she feels able to raise her eyes to meet his.

‘I’m okay,’ she says softly. And it might not be the whole truth, but she will be okay now.

‘You’re okay,’ he nods.

He moves to pull back to rest beside her once more but she reaches up to cup his cheek, ‘Thank you.’

It’s not enough. Not enough to say how unbelievably grateful she is but he seems to get it anyway. He gives her that look of his as if to say _of course_ and she’s finally starting to believe it. To believe that this is how it can be. That they will show up for one another. Always.

‘What can I do?’ he questions, searching her eyes.

‘This. This helps.’

‘Okay. This I can do.’ He arches his arm over her to pull her to his side and she relishes in the comfort of his presence.

‘I made sure to face the window,’ she says after a while.

‘You did. Does that help?’

He’s close enough to feel her shrug. ‘Sometimes. It reminds me that the world is out there. Sometimes it helps to calm me knowing it’s there. That it isn’t just what’s happening to me right then.’

She’s not surprised when he asks how long it’s been since she’s had an attack. She’s never mentioned it to him nor has he seen one. The closest she had come was when she’d rung him all those weeks ago after the night game with the bad injury, but that had simply been a stressful day. It wasn’t this. It wasn’t her body surrendering itself to the adrenaline.

She falters when she realises the answer to his question but the truth of it doesn’t surprise her.

‘I haven’t had one since I met you.’

And her words were quietly spoken, but she knows he’s heard them from the way in which the rhythm on his own steady breathing stutters before resuming.

They don’t speak for quite some time. The safety of his company helping to steady her.

‘Did you see it?’

‘Aye, there’s no more news yet than I imagine you heard.’

‘Okay.’

It’s just another reason that she loves him, that he doesn’t push. That he’s here for her without pushing. Waiting for her to come to him and she knows what a gift that is. It’s not one she intends on wasting anymore so she gives voice to her fears and lets him in.

‘I couldn’t think. I couldn’t focus on anything except that scrolling message saying that it was potentially fatal and I just…I know it’s not possible but for a moment I thought it was my fault. What if he’d tried to call me again when he’d been drinking but he couldn’t get through because I’d blocked his cell? What if I could have somehow stopped this?’

She feels the kiss he presses to the side of her head and even now, amidst all of this, she relishes the first loving contact they’d had in over a week. ‘You’re right, Emma – it’s not possible. Neal is an adult and responsible for his own choices. You could never be responsible for this.’

She knows there is more he wishes to say but doesn’t.

‘You’re right. I do know that,' she shrugs, 'It just was too much all at once.’

‘It’s okay to be scared,’ he whispers against her hair, ‘I’m right here.’

She’s the first to move, sometime later. She stands on her feet feeling the ground steady beneath her before holding her hand out to pull him to his feet.

She glances at the clock and see’s it’s now just before three. ‘I should probably go talk to Ruby and sort out the rest of my day.’ At the questioning glance in his gaze she reaches out to squeeze his hand. ‘I’m okay.’ And this time she’s able to say it with more conviction. ‘I’ll see you in an hour or so?’

She doesn’t want to be parted from him really but she truly does need to speak to Ruby and she has a patient and, well, she needs some time to collect herself before seeing him again. Today hasn’t gone as she expected but it doesn’t change the fact that they need to talk and she won’t be the reason that they don’t. She just needs a little time to steel herself.

Killian seems hesitant to leave her despite the fact that she knows he will because she’s asked him too. She pulls him into a hug before she can talk herself out of it and it heals some of the wedge she’d forced between them. Can feel the moment when he relaxes into her.  Eventually, they pull away and she can’t deny the look in his eyes is anything but love. (She doesn’t want to deny it anymore.)

‘I’ll see you in a bit then, love.’

She grins at the endearment, her endearment. She can’t help it and he seems to realise what he’s done from the way he reaches up to scratch his ear.

‘You will,’ she says finally letting herself realise she doesn’t need to do this alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your patience with getting this chapter up!


	16. Chapter 16

He doesn’t wish to part from her but he has work and she has work and he knows he’ll see her later. Soon, in fact, but it doesn’t change the fact that right now he dearly wishes for her not to be out of her sight.

 

She’s stronger than she realises, but it doesn’t mean someone shouldn’t be there for her. He hates that even for a moment she thought that this mess with Neal could in any way be due to her. This is on Neal. As sad and horrible as it is, Neal made the decisions which lead to him being in this mess.

 

Staying would also mean prolonging his facing Regina because he thinks pissed will be somewhat of an understatement when she sees him upon his return.

 

Belle is waiting for him at the main entrance upon his arrival, him having text her to say all was okay and he was on his way back. She practically runs at him overflowing with her excitement.

 

‘God, Killian. I did it. They were delighted, thrilled in fact. I said that you’d be in touch as soon as you were able to, but I did it!’

 

‘Of course, you did,’ he grins.

 

Belle sobers slightly from her rush of excitement, ‘Thank you, Killian for trusting me to do it.’  She squeezes his arm, ‘How is she? Is it Neal?’

 

He drags a hand through his hair, ‘Aye, I think she will be. It should be me thanking you anyhow.’

 

‘Well you can start with a coffee,’ she says linking her arm through his as they turn to make their way inside.

 

‘I might just throw in a muffin for you too.’

 

He leaves Belle laden with her confectionaries and the most extravagant coffee the barista was able to make. He pushes the door into his office open with his shoulder, eyes down on his phone reading a text message from an unknown number that can only be Ruby.

 

_Thank you, Jones. x_

 

He begins tapping out a reply to say no thanks are necessary when a voice startles him.

 

‘I take it Miss Swan is okay then?’

 

He looks up surprised to find Regina spin around in his office chair, eyebrow arched and a look of condemnation on her face.

 

‘Jesus Christ, Regina. Don’t do that to a man,’ he says clutching at his chest, ‘You made me jump out my skin turning round like some sort of Bond villain.’

 

‘I’d be the best one there ever was,’ she smirks but there’s no bite to her tone.

 

He shuffles from one foot to another, ‘Look, Regina. I apologise for having to leave like that and I know that –‘

 

‘You still haven’t answered my question, Jones.’

 

‘Your question?’

 

‘Is Miss Swan okay?’

 

How did she know it was Emma? Surely Belle hadn’t said.

 

‘Miss French said it was a family emergency,’ she continues, ‘and since your brother lives across the Atlantic Ocean I highly doubt that even your skill set has allowed you to travel there and back in this time.’

 

He decides on going with honesty. ‘Aye, I went to see Emma and I apologise for the timing and for the way in which I left but there wasn’t time to find you.’

 

Regina shakes her head looking somewhat affronted, ‘Killian, did you really think I would be cross about this? Yes, the timing wasn’t ideal. However, Miss French impressed – you were right about her potential – and some things are more important.’

 

He watches her brows knit together and realises why she’s bothered by his apologies and then he gets it when she sees the way her eyes catch the photo of he and Roland on the side table. She was hoping that he knew her well enough as Robin’s friend and Roland’s pseudo-uncle to know Regina and not ‘Regina Mills’. To know that behind her power plays and fierce reputation, she cares.

 

‘She’ll be okay, thank you. The news came on and it blindsided her a little.’

 

Regina sighs tiredly, ‘That man has thrown away all the good things in his life.’

 

‘So it would seem.’

 

Regina moves to stand.

 

‘Thank you, Regina.’

 

‘If anyone asks, I’m making you work overtime for a week.’

 

He laughs, ‘Of course.’

 

‘And I promised the clients you’ll take them to dinner next week.’

 

 ‘Aye, and I suppose that one will be on me?’

 

‘Since you offered…’

 

He watches her leave and shakes his head. As afternoons go, he won’t be forgetting this one in a hurry.

 

\--------

 

The clock on his dashboard informs him it is two minutes to four when he pulls up at his place and yet he finds that Emma is already there leaning against her bug chatting to Nina and the man he had seen leaving the other morning who definitely has an arm slung around her shoulder.

 

Emma must hear the noise of his car door shutting because she catches his eye across the way and smiles, Nina and her companion waving as they make their way indoors.

 

‘I brought coffee,’ Emma says by way of introduction turning to lift the take out cups from off the roof of her bug. She thrusts the take out cup toward him and then nestles hers in her hands for something to do. She chews on her lower lip and the ease with which their intimacy had arisen earlier in the afternoon seems to have evaporated.

 

‘Thanks, love’

 

He gestures for them to start walking noticing the grip with which Emma holds her coffee cup. He’s a little nervous too, he won’t deny it, but he hates to see her agitated again after the day she’s had.

 

‘So, Mary Margaret will be disappointed that he matchmaking plans for Nina have gone awry.’ He offers lightly.

 

Emma snorts into the lid of her coffee, ‘Actually I think she’ll be unbearably smug.’

 

‘It never is?’

 

‘It certainly is. You just missed the chance to meet Flynn, also known as your neighbour’s new partner, also known as the instructor from the fitness sessions at the school.’

 

‘Bloody hell!’ he laughs and then so does Emma and just like that the tension dissipates. He says he can’t wait to see David’s face when Mary Margaret finds out and Emma does a scarily accurate impersonation of her brother that has him smirking.

 

They wander down by the water a little way until they reach ‘their bench’ but Emma doesn’t seem to want to sit. He leans on the wooden railing next to her and watches the way in which she picks at the sleeve on her coffee cup.

 

‘So I’m not always great with words,’ she starts quietly, ‘but I know I need to talk to you. I, I want to talk to you about things. Can you just be patient with me while I try and get this out?’

 

His heart thrums in his chest anticipating, hoping. ‘I’ll listen to anything you have to say, Swan.’

 

He watches the corner of her mouth twitch downwards in a sad smile.

 

‘I know.’

 

She turns to look out at the water grappling to pull her hair over her other shoulder in the breeze.

 

‘The only real relationship I’ve ever been in was a broken one. A selfish one. One that lacked mutual respect or love, in the end I guess,’ she shrugs, ‘I’m not making excuses for pushing you away because _I_ did that. That was my choice but all of this is new to me.’

 

‘We were doing just fine, love. Better than fine,’ he adds sadly.  She’s it for him and he’s fairly certain she knows that.

 

Her hand squeezing his on the rail before them is light but the when he meets her gaze it says it all. She does know. She knows how he feels and what they had – have. He sees it written all over her face.

 

‘Killian, I know that sorry isn’t enough. Not when I have pulled away from you before but I am so sorry. I can’t explain how much I wish that I’d,’ she shakes her head swiping away at the tears which tumble from her eyes, ‘that I wish I had handled things differently because I hurt you.’

 

He opens his mouth to speak, wanting to comfort her even though she’s right. He’s hurting. He’s hurting but so is she and this is such a mess. The woman he loves is fighting off tears before him and he yearns to comfort her but he feels like he shouldn’t. Not yet at least.

 

‘No, Killian,’ she says holding a hand between them, ‘You deserve to hear this.’

 

Emma ducks her head as a couple of joggers come past, hiding her emotions from all but him. The enormity of her sharing them with him at all isn’t lost on him.

 

‘I hurt you because of _me_ , Killian, not because of you and I need for you to know that. I panicked. All of these terrible memories I have of being left my whole life came flooding to the surface.’ She swallows thickly and this is killing him, seeing her hurt. ‘Foster family after foster family, Neal. God, I was just never enough.’ She pauses shaking her head at the memories. He squeezes her hand a little tighter. He won’t leave her, given the chance. ‘When you chose me, chose us, that was all I ever wanted. All I ever wanted was to be enough for someone and then when it happened…’

 

‘You ran.’

 

‘I did. I ran. I run. I’ve run from a whole lot of things my whole life to try and protect myself but it didn’t work this time.’

 

He swallows thickly, ‘No?’

 

‘No. Because I _wanted_ to stay. I have someone who wanted me to stay,’ she turns to face him and raises a trembling hand to cup his cheek. ‘I had you.’

 

‘You have me,’ he says earnestly and his heart soars a little when she nods.

 

‘I know. I know that and I’m working on accepting that. Killian, I know the kind of man you are. I know when you say you want me that you mean it and I’m sorry if I ever made you feel like I doubted that. It was me that I was doubting, not you.’

 

Doubting? Was she doubting her feelings towards him? He looks down suddenly hesitant to see answer in her eyes he doesn’t want to know. He wants, needs, to ask whether she means she was doubting her love for him. The words won’t come. His mouth suddenly and arid desert.

 

He doesn’t need them. Emma’s words assuaging his own fears.

 

‘There’s some things I need to work through, figure out. Things I think I’ve brushed aside for too long but, Killian,’ she whispers moving his check slightly so he’s looking straight at her, ‘I’m certain of you.’

 

She’s not the only one holding back tears now as he stares down amazed at her. Stares down at the woman he loves. The woman who is certain of _them_.

 

She smiles at him and he feels the way her hands still tremble a little as they cup his cheeks. ‘I’m not the easiest person to love,’ she begins and though he wishes to tell her that she is incredibly easy to love, he lets her continue, ‘I know I’m harder than easy but I promise you that it’s you for me, Killian. You have my heart.’

 

His own heart swoops in his chest and he’s sure she must be able to hear how violently it’s beating. ‘Swan, please tell me I can kiss you now?’

 

Her lips are on his before he has barely finished speaking. He pulls his arms around her waist wanting to be closer, wanting to savour every moment because this is everything.

 

It feels like coming home.

 

They pull apart eventually only for her to tuck herself into his chest. His emotions are raw in the cold wind but he’s loath to move them to somewhere warmer. This is too important.

 

He feels her confession pressed softly against his chest over the beating of his heart. ‘I don’t want to lose you, Killian. I can’t lose you.’

 

‘You have me, love. Always.’ He says pressing a kiss into her windswept hair. And he dearly doesn’t want to tip the scales but she’s been honest with him and he needs to be honest too. 

 

\-------

It feels like home, being wrapped up in his arms. She feels warm and safe and _loved_ and she’d stay here forever in the biting cold wind so long as he’ll stay with her.

 

She nearly says it, nearly tells him she loves him but she doesn’t want it to seem like she expects the words to smooth over the cracks she’s made. He deserves to hear those words when he has no doubt that it’s simply because she _can_ say them. Because she wants to.

 

And so instead she tells him that she can’t lose him. Which is true; she can’t lose him from her life when he is exactly who she wants to be by her side. Always.

 

She feels the very Killian-like kiss he presses to the side of her head from where she is snuggled against her chest.

 

He pulls back slightly and she looks up to see him warring with himself.

 

‘Hey,’ she whispers, ‘talk to me.’

 

‘Emma, love…I…,’ he huffs out an exhale and she can’t help the concern that inches along her spine. It’s isn’t like Killian to struggle for words. The man is painfully eloquent. ‘Thank you for being honest with me and wanting me, wanting us. You have to know that’s all I want.’

 

‘I do.’

 

‘I respect you, Emma, and if you ever need space you know I will give it to you but I don’t think I can do this again.’

 

And it’s a testament to the trust she has in this man that she knows that what he’s about to say will not be that he can’t do ‘them’ again – Emma and Killian – and so she waits. Patience isn’t her strong point but she’s learning.

 

‘I don’t think I can do it again if you push me away, Emma because you’re everything to me. Surely you must know that?’

 

She nods squeezing her eyes shut against the wave of emotion threatening to overcome her.

 

‘I need you to trust that I won’t turn away from you or change my mind. I don’t ever want to make you feel pressured but I can’t wait for you to figure it out on your own each time when you run. I need you to let me in enough to just tell me that you need some time. Let me help you to figure everything out. I don’t want you to run from me every time.’

 

His words are choked and she can see him battling to keep control of his emotions. She realises she’s not the only one with her heart on the line here. Not the only one who has been left behind before.

 

She gazes up at him and takes in the dark circles smudged beneath his eyes. The tiredness clinging to his brows. She’d missed it earlier when he’d so caringly come to her work. She knows she means the world to him. Knows it in all the little things he does and says. In the ways he smiles at her like she’s a marvel when she shakes an inordinate amount of cinnamon on top of her coffee or how she leaves her shoes toed off one behind the other as she steps out of them. His laughter when he claims it looks as if she has teleported away.

 

She doesn’t want to run anymore either.

 

Pressing up onto her tiptoes she leans in until their noses are pressed together.

 

‘I’m done running,’ she whispers.

 

He grins, wide and free.

 

‘And if you do need time or space or –‘

 

‘I’ll tell you, Killian. I promise to tell you. We’ll be like a team.’

 

‘That sounds pretty good to me.’

 

‘Good.’

 

‘Good,’ he says before kissing her sweetly. ‘So long as team fraternisation is allowed.’

 

‘Hmm, maybe you’ll have to convince me,’ she teases smiling.

 

‘You’d better not need convincing,’ he grouses kissing her so soundly that he pulls her off her feet.

 

She hears a couple of teenagers wolf whistle at them as the skateboard past and she simply couldn’t care.

 

‘Are they too young for me to tell them to piss off?’ he smiles against her lips.

 

‘I don’t care,’ she laughs.

 

‘You don’t care if I swear at them?’

 

‘I don’t really care about anything else but us right now.’

 

‘Good answer, Swan,’ he says as he feet lower back down to the ground. ‘Do you fancy warming up at mine for a bit?’

 

He laughs at himself realising the innuendo in his words as Emma chuckles too. ‘You know, for once that was unintentional.’

 

She takes his hand ready to lead them back towards his place. ‘I do know and I adore you all the same.’

 

He blushes at her words and it makes her fall for him even more.

 

‘I happen to adore you too, Swan.’

 

And maybe it’s something about the word ‘adore’ that is so painfully loving but it has her blushing too.

 

She tells him about her trip to see Ruth the following week and all her fears that he would see it as her running away (again) are softened when he looks at her with such pride.

 

‘Good for you, Swan.’

 

‘I’ll miss you.’

 

‘I’ll miss you too but I’m fairly certain that Maine has Wi-fi so we’ll be able to FaceTime and Skype and ring. You won’t be able to escape me that easily. In fact, you’ll be sick of the sound of my voice.’

 

‘Not possible,’ she says tucking herself into his side as they walk up the steps to the entryway. She knows he was joking but there’s an undercurrent running through his words. She gets it. They’ve just found their way back to one another and she’s leaving in the morning.

 

‘I’ll still have a few more days to take though,’ she says as she steps into his place and shrugs off her jacket. It’s warm inside. He’s always more diligent about setting the thermostat than she is at her own place.

 

‘Oh yeah?’

 

‘Maybe we could get away somewhere for a few days in the off season?’ She offers. It’s months away but there’s a promise in there that she hopes he reads.

 

He does if the way in which he tries and fails to fight the smile spreading across his face.

 

‘Now that sounds like a brilliant plan to me.’

 

He moves away into the kitchen and Emma can hear him busying himself with pots and pans but she finds herself gazing at her jacket tucked next to his on the coat rack by the door revelling in the welcome realisation that she (and her jacket) are exactly where they’re meant to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your support for this story. Only a couple more chapters to go now!


	17. Chapter 17

She shrugs lightly, hands curled around her cooling mug of cocoa. 'And, well that's it I guess.'

  
Ruth, to Emma's immense gratitude, is quiet. Contemplative. She must have talked for close to and hour now. About work, about Killian, about the fundraiser, about Neal. It's tiring, bearing your soul. Letting your guard now. She tugs her legging clad legs to her chest and rests her head on her knees.

  
'Darling,' Ruth says, moving forward to brush a loose strand of hair from her face, 'Emma, can I say something?'

  
There's warmth and love and all of the other typically Nolan things in her gaze but still Emma finds herself hesitant. She nods afraid that she'll say no if she opens her mouth despite her wanting desperately to hear what Ruth has to say. That is, after all, the reason she is here.

  
'I could not be more proud of you,' she says fiercely holding Emma's chin so she looks directly into her eyes. 'You amaze me, girl. You have always amazed me since the day I met you but I have never felt so proud of you as I do now.'

  
'Really?,' Emma says lightly, 'I thought you had never been more proud of me when I accidentally let slip that David was going to propose.'

  
'Well this may be a close second then. A mother can't help but feel excited when her family grows.'

  
Emma laughs chewing her lower lip. In appearance, David has always more closely resembled his father but that look, that look of hope and of happiness that she so often sees in her brother's eyes, is all Ruth.

  
'You have always had a lot to contend with in your life, Emma, but oh my have you faced it more strength of character than I can comprehend.'

  
She feels her cheeks flush despite praise from Ruth being the norm. A woman so open with her affections. It had taken quite bit of time to get used to, to accept, but it's worth it. She knows this. She gained a family from her accepting the Nolan's love.

  
'And you can tell be to stop, you can tell me I'm wrong, 'Ruth begins holding her hands up in defence, 'but being vulnerable doesn't make you weaker Emma. Opening your heart to someone, even when they are they right person, is hard. Letting someone is is hard, but it's so worth it, Emma. It makes you stronger. Having people who lift you up, is a good thing.'

  
Emma's eyebrow raise doesn't go unnoticed.

  
'You know I'm right.'

  
'Maybe.'

  
Ruth grins. 'Maybe'

  
'I'm going to reheat this,' Emma says needing something, anything to do. To just take a second to breathe because as much as Ruth is making sense, it's a little overwhelming.

  
She pads quietly into the kitchen, idly pressing buttons on the microwave. Ruth's words turn round and round in her head as she watches the mug do the same.

  
It is a good thing. How can Killian being in her life not be a good thing? He's good for her. He can be another good thing in her life. She knows she won't stop questioning her own happiness overnight but she's willing to try. She'll always try where Killian Jones is concerned.

  
Ruth is knitting when Emma returns, looking up to greet her with a smile and Emma marvels at her patience. Not just now, but always. She recalls how Ruth had physically bitten her lip to stop her from asking questions about the charity fundraiser and so Emma decides to meet her halfway.

  
'Do you wan't to see some photos from the event?'

  
The clack-clack of the needles stops immediately. Whatever pattern Ruth is working on tossed aside. 'I'll get the laptop,' Ruth says practically leaping up.  
A giggle escapes Emma when Ruth returns with glasses perched on the end of her nose and laptop in hand. She snaps a picture of her with her tongue poking out in concentration as she fires up the ancient machine and quickly sends it to David adding the caption - _Some things never change_

  
**Our mother the tech genius. Give her a smooch from me (and Leo)**

  
Emma sniggers, 'David sends his love.'

  
Ruth eyes her from over the top of her glasses. 'Are you two laughing at my computer skills again?'

  
How did she know? It's like a right to read people's minds is handed out in the delivery room when you become a mother.

  
'Oh we would never,' Emma grins reaching over to pull the laptop onto her lap. Geez, it's heavy. She and David really need to treat her to a new one.  
She logs into her email to open the files Ruby sent over. 'I haven't even looked at them all myself yet,' Emma says as Ruth squeezes closer so they can both see.  
'So these are just a few of the room.'

'Oh yes, I could see some of this from the coverage online but I couldn't get a proper look at it.'

  
Ruth is engrossed in the images on the screen, clicking through the shots of the event set up and the promotional images of the players with the children mindless to Emma's observation of her. She feels awful for not having shared this with her sooner. She's proud of her. Emma can see that. Knew how much Ruth had wanted to attend but couldn't as she was away at the time.

  
'I should have sent them across sooner, I just...' she tails off. She just made a right mess of things for a little while there.

  
'Oh, nonsense,' Ruth says waving her apologies away. 'It's much better having you here to explain it all to me. Now tell me about the set up of this.'

  
They spend the next twenty minutes or so discussing the organisation of the event and the number of sign ups they've had since. It feels good. With all that happened, she hasn't really allowed herself to feel this yet. To take a minute to be proud of what they have achieved thus far.

  
'So where are the ones of you all? David sent me a couple of pictures of Mary Margaret but I want to see some of all of you.'

  
Emma switches between the attachment folders laughing at Ruth's gasps over their dresses and her 'handsome boy.'

  
'Wow, would you look at Ruby!' Ruth all but wolf whistles as she scrolls through. 'This one is beautiful. Can I get a copy?'

  
It's one of her and David. He has his arm around her and whatever Emma has said has made him laugh. It's a good photo. Emma can see why she'd want it.  
'Of course, just let me know any you want and I'll get them sorted for you.'

  
'Oh well there was a lovely one of you girls up on the stage too then,' Ruth tosses a look her way. 'No that I imagined you enjoyed that all that much.'

  
'Damn straight.' Emma tells her about how sweaty her palms had felt as she had stood on the stage and gets lost in the story of telling her how Mary Margaret had gripped her hand so tightly that her nails had left marks that she doesn't realise that Ruth has continued to click through the photographs until she hears her gasp.  
When she looks at the screen she sees the photograph of her and Killian. The same one that had stopped also stopped her in her tracks.

  
'So this is your Killian then?'

  
She's about to answer that he isn't _her_ Killian at all. That the concept of people as property is absurd and outdated. When she looks at the photograph once more and realises that she's his as much as he is hers. That it's about choice, not ownership.

  
'Yeah,' she nods, 'That's him.'

  
Ruth reaches over to squeeze her hand.

  
'He's pretty great,' Emma says smiling fondly at the photo.

  
'Well it seems like you've found a man who might just deserve you, sweetheart. From what you've told me, and what your brother has told me and seeing how he looks at you...' Her voice breaks as she glances down at the photograph again and Emma reaches over to hug her.

  
'It's a good thing,' Emma says into her shoulder, 'Trust me, my intention wasn't to make you upset.' They pull away and Ruth is indeed, on the verge of tears.  
'He makes me happy. Really happy. You'd like him. He's smart and funny and patient.' It's not so hard, she finds, talking about him. Not when it's the truth. 'He's not hard to look at either.'

  
At that Ruth's grin widens and she swipes the tears from her cheeks. 'That's just it though. Hearing you so openly say that what you have is good, accepting the kind of person and the kind of love you deserve, that's all I've ever wanted for you.'

  
Now Emma feels like she might just shed a damn tear too. Damn the Nolans and their infectious emotions.

  
'If it makes you feel better, I went through a similar routine with your brother when he found Mary Margaret. Although he was just as much of a blubbering mess as I was.'

  
'Oh I am definitely storing that fact away for a rainy day then.'

  
Ruth resumes clicking through the photographs. There are more of her and Killian in the next few shots and Emma feels the urge to maybe get a few printed herself when she sorts some for Ruth. Maybe she could get one for Killian?

  
'Don't tell your brother, but he really is a handsome guy isn't he? Look at those eyes!' In true 'Mom' style, Ruth holds the laptop before before her face. Her own eyes mere inches from the screen. 'They're not photo-what do you call it are they?'

  
Oh she has to tell Killian this one. But maybe she'll save it for FaceTime so she can see him flush in embarrassment. 'No, they're not photoshopped. The idiot is just painfully handsome.'  
\--------  
His world feels righted. As if he's found his sea legs at long last. Emma might not be here but they're okay. Or they will be okay and that's everything.

  
She'd let him know that he had arrived earlier on in the day. He'd replied to say thank you and to enjoy spending time with Ruth but hadn't wanted to push further.

She had taken the time and effort to drive up there to clear her head and work through things and he didn't want to pressure her. Doesn't mean he's not missing her though.

  
He goes for a run after work to clear his own head. Runs until the endorphin kicks in as he slows to a jog outside his place. He walks down the water and lets his head swim with the memories of Emma yesterday when he feels his phone vibrate from within the armband strapped to his arm.

  
It's a picture message from Emma which he quickly swipes open. Her face is mainly hidden behind the substantial mug in his hands but he can see that her eyes are smiling over the rim of it.

  
She's beautiful.

  
He begins to type his reply as he walks back to his place.

  
**A mug full of cocoa I take it?**

  
_You know me well_  
_How did your day go?_

  
**Aye, pretty well. Writing up reports from yesterday's meeting mainly.**

  
_You free to catch up later?_

  
**Looking forward to it**

  
He's just getting ready for bed himself when his phone rings later. He sees it's a video call and grabs his MacBook instead.

  
'Swan', he grins at her as he accepts the call and she comes into view. Her blonde hair is piled up messily on top of her head and he's fairly certain she's in an old high school sweatshirt. She looks tired but the smile that greets him warms his heart.

  
'Hey you.'

  
'How's your day been? Good to see Ruth?'

  
Emma shakes her head smiling. A typically Emma move. Questioning the good things even self consciously. 'I shouldn't have left it so long to come up here.'

  
'You're there now, love.'

  
'You sound like Ruth.'

  
'Then Ruth sounds like a wise woman.'

  
She snorts, 'Geez, you two could captain one another's fan clubs.'

  
'Excuse me?'

  
She launches into a slightly mortifying tale of how Ruth questioning the colour of his eyes and trying to see where they had been photoshopped.

  
He arches his eyebrow, 'Well, the lady has a point.'

  
'Turn on the charm all you want, Jones. You've gone as red as a tomato!'

 

'Bloody hell,' he groans. 'Stupid video calling.'

  
Emma's reply stops him in his tracks. 'Not so stupid when I get to see your face.'

  
Their eyes connect through the screen. Both momentarily surprised by her openness.

  
'Yeah, me too,' he smiles.

  
They talk about what her plans are for the following day before she quiets. 'No news then?'

  
She doesn't need to say news about Neal. He knows. The both do. It had been the oddest atmosphere at work all day. Yes, Neal was never the easiest person to work with but he had a lot of friends at the club and he is (was) a real talent on the ice.

  
'No news yet but that could be anything.'

  
'It could'

  
'Fingers crossed, aye?'

  
'Yeah.'

  
She wraps her arms closer around herself and he dearly wishes he was there to do so himself.

  
'I should let you get some sleep,' she says quietly.

  
'No rest for the wicked.'

  
'Or the photoshopped'

  
He groans, 'I could hang up you know.'

  
'You wouldn't.'

  
'I wouldn't'

  
'Night, Killian.'

  
'Night, Swan'

  
He dreams of her in that ratty sweater sitting on his couch with a cup of cocoa in hand. He dreams of home.

  
They text intermittently all through the following day and it feels good. Feels right. His replies are sporadic because as brilliant as Regina had been about him ducking out on one of the most important meetings the club will likely have all year he needs to make sure his head is in the game.

  
Belle, as it turns out, has met some guy at the juice bar last month that she's quite smitten with. He's teased her about it all day and demanded he meet him as they made their way back to their desks after lunch.

  
'Killian, I have been on four dates with him. Don't you think it's a little soon for me to introducing him to my friends?'

  
'I don't know, lass. Would it make you uncomfortable?'

  
She shakes her head.

  
'Would it make him uncomfortable?'

  
This time she smiles. 'I really don't think so.'

  
'Well then,' Killian calls as he walks away, 'let me know when the two of you are going to come round!'

  
'I never agreed to anything!'

  
She doesn't have to. He can tell Belle isn't adverse to the idea and though she is a smart lass more than capable of looking after herself, he can't help but feel a little overprotective of her. When he first came to the club, she was just getting out of long term relationship which had ended poorly and without having to say anything, they'd both recognised understanding in the other's eyes.

  
A message from Elsa pops up on his screen and he grins at the photo of the two Jones girls smiling into the camera. Poppy is a Jones through and through. All blue eyes and dark hair. He notices she wears the team's jersey and he laughs out loud when he reads Elsa's comment. _Your brother has refused to let her wear this so far claiming it would taint her allegiance to his beloved Tottenham. Even I know they're different sports! Well guess what, he's away with work so thanks for the top Uncle Killian! x_

  
He idly wonders where Liam is with work and makes a note to ring him later before returning to his work.

  
His phone rings as he's making his dinner that night.

  
'Little brother!' calls Liam's voice. 'You rang?'

  
'Aye, just wanted to check in.'

  
'Sorry, I was in a meeting.'

  
'Elsa mentioned you were away?'

  
'And when have you been speaking to my lovely wife?' his brother teases. 'Aye, I had to come up to Liverpool to meet with a client. I had to cancel their meeting when they were coming down to London so it only seemed right that I make the effort to get up there.'

  
'Go okay?'

  
'Aye, fine. The lass in charge up there is easy to work with. In fact...'

  
Liam tails off and Killian groans. 'I swear, Liam if you are about to say I would get on with the lass as a way to get me to say no thank you and fish for information about Emma and I then you can stop right now. I have no interest in your pretending to try and set me up with someone I will never meet when I...'

  
'When you what, little brother?' Liam prods.

  
'When I already have the only woman I could ever want.'

  
'So things went well I take it?'

  
'Yeah, yeah they did.'

  
'Are you just saying that or have you actually worked things through?'

  
Killian rolls his eyes knowing Liam won't budge on this until he knows the full story. It's better to just fill him in now and put his questions to rest.  
'But she still left?' Liam asks after Killian finishes.

  
At his brother's words Killian knows he slams the pan down onto the stove with more force than is necessary.

  
'No, brother,' he says failing to keep his frustration hidden, 'she hasn't left. She's gone to visit her Mom. It's hardly the same thing.'

  
Liam's quiet but Killian doesn't know what else to say. It isn't the same thing at all. This isn't about Emma running.

  
'I'm sorry, Killian. I'm not trying to be an arse here. I just worry about you.'

  
'Well don't if it means you questioning my life all the time.'

  
'I know. I'm sorry. I just miss you sometimes and I want to know that you're happy.'

  
The bite goes from him. He doesn't want to argue with Liam. 'I am happy, brother. Look,' he sighs running a hand through his hair, 'Emma and I will be okay. More than okay. She's had a tough life and she's gone to see her Mom to help face up to a few things so that she and I can be happy.'

  
'Okay, well that sounds good then.'

  
'It is, Liam.'

  
When the call ends after a chat about the upcoming derby match between Tottenham and Arsenal, he wants nothing more than to speak to Emma. Needs to speak to her to confirm that all he had said to Liam. Just needs to hear her voice and see her and know that he is right.

  
His ear is hot from his conversation with Liam so he reaches for his MacBook and calls her up.

  
He thinks it's about to ring out when she answers and her face comes into view on his screen. She must have answered on her phone as he face is close to the screen and the image moving up and down as she walks.

  
'Hey, you okay?' she asks concern in her voice. They normally message prior to making a video call so they can settle down for a chat.

  
'Yeah, yeah. All good,' he says but the way in which her brow furrows shows she doesn't quite buy it. Seeing her though has worked its magic. Eased his frustrations from his conversation with Liam. 'Where are you?'

  
'Well I am currently in the hallway to some public bathrooms. It's very scenic. Here,' she grins before turning her phone around so he can see said hallway. 'Very fancy, huh?'

  
'Aye, Swan,' he chuckles. 'Those cream walls looks completely different to any others I have seen.'

  
'We're just about to get dinner at one of the local restaurants I used to love here. They have the best crab cakes I swear.'

  
She's genuinely excited by the prospect of the damn crab cakes he can see and he feels bad for pulling her away when she's out for dinner.

  
'I'll leave you to it then, lass. Go enjoy your food.'

  
'Okay,' she says her eyes narrowing slightly and he realises she knows him well enough to know that he has something on his mind. 'We won't be too long though. Ruth has me going to help her at some fundraising thing bright and early tomorrow so I'll call you when I'm home.'

  
She nods her head in determination as if to say, I'm on to you, Killian Jones.

  
It takes a lot to outsmart his Swan.

  
'Sounds good, love.'

  
True to here word they're on the phone again within two hours and he's laughing at her waxing lyrical about the food and talking about how good it was to see some of her Mom's neighbours.

  
'You haven't gone back in while then?'

  
She sighs, 'No. I should have. Coming back now made me realise it. I just felt like I needed to prove a point that I could do things on my own and Neal was never a fan of the place...' She shrugs.

  
'You can do anything you want to, Emma. You don't have to do it alone though.' He means it. She is one of the strongest people he knows. He's constantly amazed by her and yet he wishes she could see that it's okay to lean on other people. To get some of your strength from others.

  
'I think I'm starting to get that,' she says toying with the frayed cuff off her sweatshirt. 'There's this handsome Brit who keeps reminding me of the fact.'

  
'You'd better not be talking about David Attenborough now, love.'

  
'Ha! He is rather dashing.'

  
'Swan...'he groans.

  
'It's a two way street you know.'

  
'You and Attenborough?'

  
She snorts. 'Leaning on other people.'

  
Argh, of course. She knew something was off earlier. He didn't want to tell her and make her feel like any of it was his fault. It wasn't. It isn't.

  
'Something's upset you,' she prompts and it's the understanding in her eyes that helps him make up his mind to tell her.

  
'Liam. We spoke on the phone earlier and he just frustrates me sometimes. How he can be so sanctimonious about things he doesn't understand will never make sense to me.'

  
'About me?' comes Emma's whisper across the line.

  
'Us,' he says more forcefully than he probably intended. 'About us.'

  
'Hey, Killian. Look at me.' He raises his gaze from where his hands are clenched in fists his at his side to meet her eyes. 'It's okay.'

  
'It's not though, Swan. Not really. Why can't he just be happy for me? For us?'

  
He's always sought Liam's approval. Always endeavoured to be the kind of person he can be proud of but sometimes he feels like it's an insurmountable task. And maybe that's him. For although he is well aware of Liam's faults, he was everything to Killian for such a long time that it's hard to not picture him on some sort of pedestal.

  
'I think that probably is what he wants. He's just looking out for you and I get that I might be on his shit list at the moment.'

  
That draws a snigger from him. Shit list. Who says that?

  
'I want Liam to like me, Killian but if I have to work at that then it's okay. I can do that,' she says determinedly. 'I just hate that I'm the reason you've had a disagreement.'

  
'He's the reason we had a disagreement, love. Brothers can be a right pain in the arse sometimes.'

  
There's the smile he's been waiting for. The one that makes her nose crinkle. 'Oh really? Shall I tell David that?'

  
'Low blow, Swan. I happen to adore your brother.'

  
She rolls her eyes at him. 'Don't I know it. You pair and your little bromance.'

  
'You love it.'

  
'Maybe. A little.'

  
'We're going for a run before the game on Saturday.'

  
'You sound way to excited about the prospect of a run.'

  
'Nonsense, love. You just haven't run with me yet.'  
\---------  
'If you can get Emma to enjoy running, then drinks are on me for a month.' David snorts when Killian tells him of his plan. 'I mean, she can run. She's pretty damn fast actually. It's a little annoying. She just runs angry.'

  
'Angry?'

  
David nods in the affirmative as he switches to stretch his alternative calf. 'Most people run to let off steam. Emma only sees it as a way to fuel her fire.'  
That sounds like the Emma Swan he knows and loves.

  
'Maybe I'll have to a bit of re-branding then,' he grins, 'I do love a challenge.'

  
'You want to add an extra mile to today's run then?'

  
'If you think you can keep up, old man,' Killian says as he begins to run away down the trail.

  
They end up at the Nolan's place nearly an hour later. Mary Margaret has breakfast ready and waiting for them and as much as she protests when he pulls her in for a sweaty hug, it's good to see her. She cups either side of his face and surveys him closely in a way that scares him. It's the kind of knowing insight she turns on her pupils from time to time.

  
He quirks an eyebrow at her waiting for her to move but she just keeps her eyes fixed on him. After what can only be moments, but feels like an eternity she nods and releases her hands on him.

  
'It's good to see you, Killian,' she says warmly.The Mary Margaret beaming smile firmly back in place. 'However, if you plan on going so long without speaking to be again then there will be more than eggs greeting you the next time you show your face.'

  
It would almost be threatening if she weren't wielding a spatula at him.

  
'Won't happen again, Lady Nolan,' he blushes leaning forward to peck her cheek. 'Your eggs are far too good.'

  
She swats him with the dishcloth out on the side. 'Make yourself useful and set the table please.'

  
It's nice, being here with them. The food, as always, is delicious and he truly enjoy spending time with the Nolans. He wishes Emma were here though.

  
'Emma said something about dragging Ruth into town to watch the game at the one of the bars later,' Davd says as he stands to clear away. He deposits Leo into Killian's arms.

  
'Oh yeah?' He likes the idea of her making the effort to watch their game. It's probably more for Ruth to see David's team than anything but still. Leo looks at him with his wide eyes. Mary Margaret's eyes through and through. 'Hey there, handsome.'

  
'How's your niece, Killian?' Mary Margaret asks from where she is tapping away on her phone.

  
'Aye, she's good thaks. My sister-in-law sent me a photo of her in the team jersey this week.'

  
'She and Leo would make a right pair then. If David had his way, it's all he'd wear,' She rolls her eyes but there's no real frustration behind it.

  
'It's game day!' David calls from the sink.

  
'Yes, but it's not game day every day, sweetheart.'

  
Killian sniggers. 'Your Mom and Dad are funny little man,' he whispers to little Leo.

  
'And you're Uncle Killian is very sweaty.'

  
'Oi!'

  
He keep his gaze down on Leo though. Rather glad that he has Leo in his arms to prevent him from scratching behind his ear. Uncle. I mean he already is an Uncle but this still floors him. He couldn't care less whether it's by blood or by not. And he knows this is nothing to do with Emma. Not that they don't welcome him as Emma's, well person? Boyfriend? Lover? (He smirks to himself at that one. Best not mention it to Dave.) This is because he's their friend and somewhere along the way they saw fit to bring that friendship into their family.

  
'Aye, I'd best be going,' he says voice thick with emotion.

  
David scoops Leo from his arms kissing blowing raspberries onto his son's belly.

  
'I'll drop you home,' Mary Margaret says sweeping her keys up from the side table, 'You have a game to get to.'

  
The game goes smoothly. Robin's team selection and strategy is widely praised in the post game coverage. His decision to rest Henry for the start of the game had caused eyebrows to raise but when Mills made his way to the ice later in the game and the who team set up shifted again to accommodate the new strategy, their opponents were blindsided.

  
Killian had to say he was impressed. He would never understand why people were always so keen to link Robin's politeness and calm manner with him being a pushover. He was as fiercely passionate a manager as any and a damn sight more talented than most.

  
He pulls into his parking bay distracted. He wants to call Emma and see how her day went. See if she watched the game. Saw Henry. So much so that as he taps out a message to her asking if she's free for a call walking up to the front steps, he doesn't see the figure sitting on the top step until he's almost on top of them.

  
He looks up at the sound of them getting to their feet.

  
'Hey, little brother.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the sizeable delay with this chapter. Working 70 hour weeks and then having your laptop die will do that. Thanks for sticking with this story.


	18. Chapter 18

'Hey, little brother.'

For a moment he must stand there gawking, phone in hand and mouth open catching flies because it is Liam standing before him. Liam who should be on the other side of the Atlantic and instead he is here, in Boston, freezing his arse off sitting on his front steps.

When the initial shock wears off he lunges forward to pull his brother into a hug.

'Liam,' he breathes, 'What are you doing here?' Suddenly a shot of terror pulses through him causing him to pull back, 'Elsa? Poppy? Are they-'

'-fine, Killian. Don't panic. Better then fine,'

'Then what are you...' Killian tails off at his elder brother's slightly sheepish expression. There's uncertainty in his brother's eyes. 'Did you forget your key or something?'

Liam reaches up to touch behind his ear, shuffling awkwardly from foot to foot. 'Well, you see I wasn't entirely sure I'd be welcome and I didn't want to presume.'

Killian clenches his jaw. His brother's attitude had rattled him on the phone but not to the extent of this. Not so much so that he wasn't welcome in his home. 'For God's sake, brother. Let's get inside, aye?'

Liam grins and begins to follow after him. 'You could help me with my bags you know?'

'Aye, I could.' Killian calls as he deliberately begins to take the stairs.

'Ha, bloody ha,' Liam groans as he goes to push the elevator.

'Out of order. Has been for a week or so. Apparently, it should be fixed by the weekend,' he shrugs as he turns to commence climbing the stairs.

'Fine, fine,'

And it nearly works, they get all the way to his door - key in the lock - when the elevator door dings and out steps Nina.

'Hey, Killian,'

'Nina. How's it going lass?'

'Good thanks, glad to be done for the day.'

'This is my brother, visiting from London,' he says gesturing to Liam.

'Nice to meet you,' she says brightly.

'You too,' Liam nods extending his hand as he drops his bags to the floor.

As soon as Nina disappears inside the comfort of her own place, Liam cuffs him round the ear.

'Out of order my arse!'

All Killian can do is laugh.

\--------

Emma's not sure she's ever seen so much bunting in her life and she called this town home for three years. Apparently, the word fundraiser is now synonymous with shabby chic decor.

'What do you think?'

Emma whips round to face the owner of the voice and can't quite believe it, 'Marco!'

She's instantly pulled into a hug and can't say she is surprised. Marco has always been the self-nominated grandpa of the entire town.

'Well you are a sight for sore eyes,' he says in that soothing lilt of his.

'You're looking pretty handsome yourself there, Marco.' Leaning forward, she adds on a whisper, 'Let me know if you need to me to be your fake date at any point to hold off the ladies.'

'And that is the reason, I think, that you and my son always got along so well.'

'How is August? It's been a while.' Truth be told, it had been years and she suddenly wishes she'd tried to keep in touch a little better. August has always been kind to her when she helped out at his Dad's shop over the weekends.

'Off lord knows where,' Marco sighs rolling his eyes but Emma can see the pride in them. 'Thailand, I believe at the moment. He and his girlfriend are helping to set up a new school.'

'That's amazing.'

'It really is. I am very much looking forward to meeting the woman who has helped him to be the man I always knew he would be.'

She sniggers. August has always had a heart of gold but he was little reckless around the edges as a young adult all those years ago.

'Well it sounds like he's really happy then.'

Marco grins so widely that Emma suspects it must hurt.

'You didn't answer my question though, Emma. What do you think?' he asks eagerly gesturing to the bedecked town.

'It looks great, Marco. Really great and I'm sure all the money raised will be much appreciated.'

She's fairly certain the elder man blushes slightly and it endears Emma to him further.

'I know it isn't in line with what you are achieving in Boston with your foundation, but we do what we can.'

Emma laughs, arching an eyebrow. 'And just what do you know about my foundation, Marco? Do I have a cyber stalker on my hands?'

His laugh is the kind that warms the insides of anyone who hears it, 'No, no just a very proud woman who considers you her own, darling girl.'

They both look across the green to spy Ruth happily chatting away to customers at the cupcake stand.

Marco had always called her, 'darling girl' ever since Ruth put in a word for her to get her weekend job. Coming from almost anyone else it would grate, but not from him. Not when such warmth of character is synonymous with the person who he is.

'She is so very proud of you. You and your brother both.'

Emma smiles lightly, unsure of quite what to say but Marco continues saving her the problem.

'And you look happy, Emma.'

'That's because I'm with you.'

'Oh of that I have no doubt, darling girl.'

Emma leans down to kiss him on the cheek, 'I'm going to go check in on Ruth.'

'Of course, of course. Oh, and Emma I am sorry. August and I both, that we didn't reach out to when things were hard.'

Emma freezes looking panicked. The last thing in the world that she wants is for Marco, lovely, sweet Marco, to know how much of a shit show her life turned into for a while there. Stupid August and his inability to keep his trap shut. It's a good job the man is on another continent.

'I...it's okay,' she swallows.

'No, it is not. You need people when things are hard and there is always a place for you at my table. I should have let you know that.'

'I do know that,' Emma says squeezing the old man's arm.

'Well, good.' He nods, 'And as hard as it was, Emma I am glad you seem to have realised that you deserve better.'

Emma shakes her head recalling all those times Neal had shown up at the shop only to be sent away by Marco.

'You never were a fan,' she says not unkindly.

Marco shakes his head as if recalling memories. 'No, I was not. It was like he put a ceiling on you and said, 'This is who you are and what you are capable of' and what nonsense that is. You are capable of anything you want.'

Emma shakes her head at how Marco's cheeks have reddened with his passionate diatribe.

'Come by the shop before you leave, I have something for you.'

Emma nods and makes her way over towards Ruth with a warmed heart but a head full of thought.

'My feet ache, I am certainly not as young as I used to be,' Ruth sighs sinking into the chair across from Emma.

'I think it has nothing to do with age and all to do with how much you do! I'm tired and I certainly can't blame it on my age.'

They've come to one of the cosier bars in town to watch the boys' game. Also, one of the ones that serve damn good onion rings.

Emma's picking at them and responding to a couple of work emails when Ruth suddenly yells, 'Oh look there he is!'

'Geez,' Emma says laughing mopping up the spill from their drinks where Ruth had jostled the table. 'Do you do that every time David gets called onto the ice?'

'Yes,' Ruth says without shame or hesitation. 'And when you do.'

Curiosity piqued, Emma turns her attention back to the screen to try and see what kind of injury it is. It looks like is might just be a groin pull but David is checking him carefully due to the way he fell on the ice that Emma sees as they show the replay.

The cameras pan to where Henry sits on the bench as the commentary turns to the coach's decision to not start him.

'Why do you think he's not starting?' Ruth asks. 'He gets such a lot of coverage for being so good.'

Emma shrugs. 'They'll be a plan.' There always is with Robin. He's not the type of coach to bench people for personal or petty reasons. 'He's a good kid.'

'You know him?'

'Who? Henry? Oh yeah. I met him at one of their games and then he bought a ticket to the fundraiser. Killian is his...well he's done a lot to support him.' What could she say? Killian is his champion? His mentor? None of them quite fit.

Ruth hums as if storing away the fact.

'Do you ever see Killian when they cover the games?'

'No, not really. He's occasionally on when they show the teams coming off the coaches, but he often has meetings during the games too.'

At Ruth's slightly disappointed face, Emma adds jokingly. 'I get to see him in person though. It's okay.'

'Just curious.'

'I bet you are,' Emma says knowing Ruth wants to ask more about him but is waiting for an in.

'So Marco said something earlier...'

His words had been turning over in her mind all day and Emma uses the distraction of the game and the buffer of the bar being a public place to protect herself a little.

'And what was that?'

'That Neal, I don't know limited me I guess?'

'In what sense?'

She speaks quietly as she continues, eyes focused on the game. 'He said it was like he put a ceiling on me and said that was what I was capable of.'

'And what do you think about that?' Ruth asks seemingly unsurprised by his comments and perhaps it's because Marco has said the sentiment to her before - or maybe it is because she's in agreement. She can’t help but want to know.

'I kind of wanted to hear what you think.'

Ruth carefully chews her onion ring. Carefully choosing her words before she speaks. 'I think there is probably a lot of truth in what he says, but then -'

'-I let him do it.'

The words rush out of her on an exhale. The sudden realisation coming to her. Yes, Neal had always had a very clear and fast idea about the kind of people he and Emma were and the life they should leave but _she_ bought into the idea. She agreed with him. She let herself agree with him.

Ruth looks at her with tears in her eyes at Emma's confession.

'Maybe you did, sweetheart.'

Emma swipes angrily at her own eyes, 'God look at us crying in a bar over a couple of lime and sodas.'

Ruth's eyes twinkle, 'Fancy something stronger?'

Emma laughs and rises to get them a glass of wine each.

'Has there been any news over Neal?' Ruth asks.

Frustratingly nothing. Either it means he remains in the same state or his father has engendered a very tight media shutdown.

'I really hope he's okay,' Emma says and it's the first time she's really said it out loud. Despite everything, she doesn't wish him harm.

'Me too.'

Ruth shifts in her seat to turn her attention back to the game but her words remain for Emma.

'You know, I think you need to find a way to try and close that chapter in your life so that you can stop beating yourself up about it.'

Emma lets Ruth's words sink in. She's right. She knows that.

'I'm trying,' she adds hating the emotion that has crept into her voice.

'I know and you have overcome so much with so much humility it astounds me. I just mean that you need to accept that perhaps there are things you would have done differently in hindsight.'

Emma feels her hands tremble slightly around her glass and she reaches to place it down on the table edge for fear of breaking it.

'But, Emma sweetheart. Hindsight always has perfect clarity and you have learned and you have grown from your past and in his own way, perhaps Neal will.'

'I hope he does,' Emma nods mulling over Ruth's words then fears they came out the wrong way. ''I don't want him to change so that he, so that he and I can...that I would ever want to...'

Ruth smiles, 'Oh I know that. I really do and I hope he can make some changes too sweetheart but that is on him. If he wants to change and learn from his choices then Neal is the man to do that Emma.'

'You're right, I know you're right but it's me really. I have thought so many times about what I did wrong and I don't mean what I did wrong to make him cheat.' That thought hasn't crossed her minds in months. Since, she realises, she had met Killian and maybe even before then. That was Neal's error. Neal's mistake. 'I mean about the choices I made and the signs I blinded myself to.'

Ruth squeezes her hand looking, 'You have to let them go. All of us have our own demons to face but you make a choice. Do you keep looking back or move forwards?'

Hours later, she’s curled up under a blanket sitting in the window seat on the landing overlooking Ruth’s beautiful back yard. She’d spent many hours tucked away here growing up. Something about the security of the small space coupled with the outside world. She mentally adds it to a list for a house in the future and she can’t help but imagine what it would be like for she and Killian to be pressed into the space together. To be curled into the comfort of his embrace.

The blanket will have to do.

It’s late and Ruth had retired for the night some time ago as she stayed awake wanting to see the stars paint their stories across the sky.

She hesitates at the late hour, but decides to call Killian anyway. He’s likely still awake after the game anyhow.

He picks up on the third ring. ‘Hey, love,’ he answers as she hears him shuffling about and shutting a door behind him.

‘Oh, sorry. Are you out with work?’

‘What? Oh, no,’ he says realising she had heard him moving about. ‘No, I was just shutting myself out on the balcony for some privacy from my big brother.’

‘Liam is there? When did that happen?’

‘Tonight. Bloody idiot was sitting out on my steps when I got home.’

As much as she can hear the smile in his voice at having his family near, there’s something else there too. She won’t push though.

‘Is he alright? I thought you’d said he wasn’t due out for a few more weeks.’ Truth be told, if you had of asked her in the not too distant past, she would have said she was excited about the prospect of meeting Liam. Now, she felt as if she may be preparing herself to meet the firing squad.

‘Aye, I had thought the same but he said something about meetings moving around and he wanted to surprise me. Think he was more surprised that I hugged him instead of punching him on sight. He worries too much.’

The words trip off Killian’s tongue easily. He’s obviously not particularly bothered by the series of events but Emma’s gut twists. She can only think of one reason why Liam would think Killian would hit him.

Seems she was right about the whole firing squad thing.

‘Emma, love,’ Killian’s voice questions over the line. Her silence clearly speaking volumes to him.

‘I’m here.’

‘I know, love and I hope you know that the reason my brother is here is because he’s a bit of a prat who was feeling rather guilty.’

There’s nothing in his voice to suggest he thinks otherwise and really Emma should believe him. He knows his brother far better than she does after all. She also knows how protective older brothers can be…

‘Swan if Liam has a problem then the problem is his own. It has nothing to do with you and I. He sometimes forgets that I’m not still his naïve kid brother in need of him teaching me how to shave and ask a girl out.’

That makes her laugh. ‘Oh, really. You may still need his help with that one…’

‘Don’t tease a man, Swan. I don’t think you could handle it if I really turned on the Jones charm.’

His words cause her toes to curl. It always baffles her how he can go from completely sincere to ridiculously charming in the next moment.

‘Maybe you’re the one who couldn’t handle it, Jones,’ she says grinning at the effect she knows he words will have on him.

‘Christ, Emma. When are you home again?’

She laughs. Loudly. Probably too loudly and she has to press her hand over her mouth to quiet herself as Killian begins some dramatic spiel about how he has ‘needs’. She knows it’s all to make her laugh. To make her worry less about Liam. It works. He always manages to quell her fears.

She tells him about her day and he fills her in the game and Belle’s new suitor. She laughs and tells him his own ‘big brother vibes’ are showing.

‘You’re probably right but I still want to check this guy out for myself. In a nice, non-threating way of course.’

‘Speaking of big brothers, I should probably let you get back to yours.

‘Aye.’

‘Goodnight, Killian.’

‘Night, love. Talk to you tomorrow.’

‘Try and stop me.’

She ends the call and rises from the window seat to stretch. Her right leg definitely a little numb beneath her.

She shakes out and folds the blanket when she hears Ruth’s door open.

‘I’m so sorry, did I wake you?’

‘I was half awake anyways,’ Ruth says lightly as she moves towards the bathroom, ‘but never apologise for your laughter.’

Knowing she won’t win this one, Emma nods and offers her goodnight.

\--------

He slides the balcony door shut behind him and turns to find an empty lounge. He glances at his watch and realises he was on the phone for longer than he had imagined.

Liam had clearly tidied up from dinner (Killian had to have learnt his fastidious habits from somewhere.) and so he makes his way to the kitchen to grab a glass of water before turning in himself.

‘That Emma then?’

He turns to see Liam leaving against the doorframe into the kitchen dressed in sweats ready for bed.

‘Aye, sorry. Didn’t appreciate how late it had gotten.’

Liam shifts uncomfortably on his feet and clears his throat.

‘Liam, whatever you feel the need to say just say it so you can get your tired arse into bed.’

Liam’s eyes twinkle and he pulls a hand through his hair. ‘I’m sorry if I haven’t helped with the whole situation between you and Emma.’

‘You did help, Liam. Talking to you helped…most of the time. When you’re being belligerent, not so much, but on the whole.’ Killian shrugs lightly. It’s Liam. He’ll always want to talk to him. Want his approval. He also doesn’t want to see his brother beat himself up over caring.

His brother barks out a laugh. ‘Fair enough, I deserve that one.’ He moves forward to pull Killian into a hug. ‘It’s nice to hear you laugh so much brother.’ Liam says as he slaps his shoulder and turns away waving a hand goodnight over his shoulder on the way to the spare room.

Killian can’t help but agree. He’s completely besotted with Emma Swan and there’s no point in denying it.

When he wakes in the morning, it’s to the smell of fresh coffee. He glances at the time and sees it’s early. He must have left his coffee machine programmed from earlier in the week. He pulls a shirt over his head and moves into the lounge. Might as well make use of the caffeine to wake himself up properly now.

He’s surprised to see his balcony door open and Liam lounging in one of the chairs, full cup of coffee in hand.

‘Thought the jet lag would mean you’d be asleep for a while yet, mate.’ Killian calls as he pours his own cup. ‘Thanks for the coffee though.’

Liam moves inside, pulling the screen door shut behind him. ‘Having a child under the age of one means you have no body clock. This one is great shot.’ He says as his fingers touch a framed image of the Killian with Poppy reaching out to grab his nose.

‘Aye, she’s a little beaut that niece of mine. So since we’re both up how about a quick drive to see if we can take a boat out on the water for a bit?’

Liam’s face lights up. ‘Little brother, sometimes you have the best plans.’

\--------

Emma had decided as she crawled into bed last night that she was going to take the trails up to Old Jack’s ridge. Now, as she packs one of David’s old backpacks she found in the garage, bleary eyed and a little sleepy she’s somewhat regretting it.

‘Here, take this as well,’ Ruth says pressing a bundled wind breaker into her hands. ‘The forecast looks clear but you never know.’

‘Thank you,’ Emma leans in to press a kiss to Ruth’s cheek as she snags a couple of apples from the fruit bowl before zipping her bag shut. ‘Enjoy your day.’

Ruth had offered for Emma to come and help down at the summer school for the day with her baking session but Emma wanted to make the most of the seemingly good weather.

It’s not a far drive to the base of the trail and she has to smile at the crooked wooden sign next to the official ranger’s sign marking the trail. It was only called ‘Old Jack’s ridge’ by the locals. Some far-fetched and convoluted old local tail she can never remember. She’ll have to ask Ruth later.

Her phone rings in the pocket of her zip up and she pulls it out the see David’s number on the screen.

‘Hey there, David. You’ll never guess where I am?’

‘On the trail to Old Jack’s peak?’ he says smugly.

‘What the hell?’

He laughs at her petulance, ‘I called the house first and Mom told me. How’s the place looking?’

She looks around taking in the beauty of the woods, ‘I just got here but it’s pretty awesome as always.’

‘Yeah, I haven’t been up there in a while. We’ll have to take Leo next time.’

‘That sounds like a great plan.’ And she can imagine it. Coming out here when it’s a little warmer with Leo strapped to David’s chest. Sharing the memories of their youth with him. The thought warms her. She may have turned her back on this place for a while but she doesn’t want to any more.

‘So, what’s up?’

‘I wasn’t sure if you’d heard the news.’

She pulls up short and stops.

‘Neal?’

‘Yeah, Emma. Breathe. It’s good news. Looks like he’s going to be okay. Maybe not okay for hockey, or at least not for a good while yet, but he’s out of the woods. Lucid, healing.’

Her head spins. ‘That, that’s great news.’

‘I know.’

‘Thank you for calling. I, god, I didn’t realise how much I needed to hear that.’ She’s pretty sure she can feel some of the tension seeping from her shoulders.

‘Yeah, I get that. I hate the guy and I still felt relieved when I heard.’

‘Glad to know that big ol’ heart of yours hasn’t blackened then.’

As if it ever could.

‘You gonna be okay?’

‘Yeah, yeah I am. Thanks for calling, David.’

‘Enjoy the hike. Send photos.’

She pockets her phone and sits on the bench beside the start of the trail leading up through the trees. She holds her head in her hand and starts to laugh. It comes from nowhere and she suddenly can’t stop it. It’s a good job it’s still early because if anybody passed her by they’d think her crazy. And really, there’s nothing funny about it but the immense feeling of relief washes over her and she can feel herself feeling better. Giddy. Lighter. Eased. The sun peeks through the trees and treads a path on the floor before her and she catches her breath.

Maybe she should have had a coffee before she left because she must be losing her marbles slightly.

She sips her bottle of water but the feeling doesn’t go. The rush of something akin to freedom. She’s been trying so hard to work through it all and then leave her past behind her and this, this feels like a moment. A step towards the future. Her future.

She suddenly wants to hear Killian’s voice.

She dials and it goes to voicemail, hears the deep warmth of his voice asking to leave a message.

‘Killian,’ she breathes. ‘David just rang and Neal is going to be okay. I don’t know if you’ve seen the news. I think he’s still pretty banged up but he’s lucid and healing and I just wanted to let you know.’ She pauses, ‘And I just wanted to let you know that I miss you. I can’t wait to come home to you.’ She nearly says it. The words so close to bubbling out. She feels them. Deeply. But she tells herself she can’t tell him like this. ‘I’m in the woods taking an old trail David and I love. We’re going to bring Leo next time. I’d… I’d like to bring you too. I’d like you to see where I grew up. Or where I found a home I guess. I’ll send you some pictures. Anyway, I hope you and Liam are doing something exciting and you didn’t just forget to charge your phone. I’ll talk to you later, Jones.’

She knows it is the rambliest message she’s ever left a person but she doesn’t care. She wanted to share her news with him and somewhere during the course of the one-sided conversation she realises she wants to share this with him too. This charming, sleepy little town. Wants to wander the streets with him and point out all the places she got herself into trouble. Wants him to come and meet Ruth and see him fluster when she tells him how handsome he is.

She’s pretty sure she wants it all with Killian Jones.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for taking the time to continue to read this story.


	19. Chapter 19

There’s something about being out on the open water that refreshes a person in a way that little else can. Or at least, that’s what it manages to do for Killian. Liam too by the looks of his brother. He knows Liam was anxious over the way he had spoken to Killian about his relationship with Emma. Knows that Liam always has, and always will, worry far too much about him. He also knows that there is likely more to it.

Where Liam would prod and push until the damn bursts, Killian is prepared to wait. His brother will come to him in his own time.

They’ve been out on the water for hours. Only now finishing off docking the boat for a quick lunch before heading home. Liam has his phone out as soon as they step off ashore and Killian’s mighty glad he is not the only Jones brother who for once wished that being out on the water wasn’t quite so remote. A little phone signal wouldn’t have been amiss.

His own phone vibrates in his pocket as he watches Liam treading a path back and forth in the sand as he laughs at something, phone to his ear. Glancing at his own phone he sees several photo messages from Emma and a voicemail. Her photographs are beautiful. They showcase her path through the woods and the views from the top. They don’t hold a candle to the one of her grinning at the top. The camera held aloft so he can see some of the view behind her but it’s her smile that captivates him. God, she’s beautiful.

He listens to her answerphone expecting her to check in on his day but is floored by her message. Neal is going to be okay. He hadn’t heard being out on the water. Neal is going to be okay and that’s a good thing. Killian would like nothing more than to punch the man in the face, but he needs him well to do that.

It’s Emma though who is truly going to be okay. He can hear it in her voice, in the words that she says (and the ones that she doesn’t). And he can’t wait to go to the place she once called home. He can’t wait to share in those memories and create their own.

He loves her.

Truly, that is everything he wants to say to her.

He spins feeling Liam’s hand on his shoulder. ‘You alright, brother?’

‘Bloody brilliant,’ he grins. ‘Now let’s have some lunch.’

‘It’s on me.’

‘Even better.’

He settles for firing off a couple of quick texts to Emma – for now. He can’t wait to call her later.

**Thank you for your voicemail. You’ve made my day.**

**Cannot wait to see where you grew up, love. Just say when x**

\--------

Emma returns tired from the day but with a lightness resting in her bones. She’s welcomed through the door by the comforting smell of Ruth’s home baking, dropping her backpack to the floor. As she kicks off her shoes, she hears Ruth’s footsteps coming down the stairs.

‘David called.’

‘I know,’ Emma grins and Ruth is moving toward her with arms outstretched and Emma can barely hold back her tears wrapped in her Mom’s embrace. ‘I feel so…I don’t know.’

Ruth pulls away gently and cups Emma’s face between her palms. ‘Free,’ she supplies and Emma can’t manage any more than a nod.

She sees what it means to Ruth in her face too. Knows that she cannot leave it so long to return here. Knows she wants Killian by her side when she does so.

‘What can I smell?’ Emma asks, hoping against hope that she knows Ruth’s answer.

‘Why your favourite, of course.’

She’s not ashamed of the whoop that leaves her (or the little air punch to go with it.)

Emma shares her photos from the day as they relax over a hot drink. Ruth insists Emma send her the photo she had snapped of herself from the top. Try as hard as Emma might to persuade her that she has far more flattering photographs of her she can keep, Ruth won’t budge.

‘Nonsense, you look beautiful and happy,’ Ruth admonishes as she stands to rinse their cups. ‘I bet Killian agrees with me.’

Emma can’t quite cover her snort quick enough. ‘Really? You’re enlisting him to team up against me when he’s hours away and you’ve never met him?’

‘Well, I would like to remedy that soon.’

‘So you can see if his eyes are as blue in person?’

Ruth laughs and fixes Emma with her Mom stare. ‘Precisely.’

‘You know, David will claim he saw him first.’

‘Well, we have to let your brother have these small victories.’

Emma tells Ruth she may have, sort of, invited Killian to stay on the phone earlier and she can see Ruth is itching to get her diary out to settle on a date. She doesn’t. Like David, she’s always been good at waiting Emma out. At supporting without pressurising. She can count Killian in that group now too.

He calls her long after Ruth has turned in for the night. Emma too is in bed, but awake for his call.

‘Jones,’ she grins.

‘Swan.’

They’re quiet on the line for a minute but it’s comfortable and loving and just what she needs.

‘I am just sitting here smiling by the way.’

‘Me too, lass.’

‘I feel happy.’

‘Me too, lass’

‘Is all of this conversation going to follow this pattern? Maybe I should say I have cramps next.’

Killian’s bark of laughter widens the smile on her face.

He fills her in on his day on the water with Liam agreeing to take her on her return. He’s so excited about coming to see where she grew up and she lets herself have this. Let’s his love for her warm her until it fills her up.

She asks him whether has organised his grilling of Belle’s new man-friend and the ways he seeks her approval melts her heart. She’s also pretty sure he’s be better off getting his advice for these kind of things from anyone but her.

‘I was thinking of having a pizza night and watching the football and kind of inviting the gang? I thought that might be less pressure?’

‘You think meeting everyone in one go will be less overwhelming?’ She asks, thinking him mad.

‘Christ you’re right,’ he says and she knows he’ll be mussing up his hair.

‘Hey, no. That’s not what I meant. You know Belle best. What made you suggest it?’

‘I rather get the impression her last partner was the opposite of social and that she felt pretty isolated by the whole affair and well, you’ve met her, she’s a great lass. She deserves more than that.’

Emma frowns. Killian’s right. The woman she’d met at the gala was warm, friendly, great company. She’d need someone sociable for a partner.

‘You’re right. Go for it.’

When they finally call it a night and turn into bed, she sleeps soundly.

Over the next two days she spends as much quality time as she can with Ruth. They facetime Mary Margaret and little Leo and her sister-in-law persuades Ruth to come down for a visit soon. Emma laughs as her friend gets carried away in making an itinerary of all the things they can do and smiles at how many of them revolve around Ruth passing on her recipes. If Mary Margaret weren’t so at home in the classroom, Emma has no doubt she could make a living as a cook.

By Tuesday morning, she’s itching to get home. To see Killian. His idea of a get together to meet Belle’s new man and for Liam to meet more of his friends had come together for the Tuesday night and she wants to surprise him a day earlier than planned.

Ruth sends her off with enough chilled meals in a cool bag to last a week. (She’s not complaining.)

‘This week has been wonderful, Emma. I have loved having you home.’

Emma pulls Ruth into a fierce hug. ‘I’ve loved being her and I promise I’ll visit more and talk more and…’

‘…hush now, I know. I know, sweet girl. I have plans to get you all up here soon enough and Mary Margaret was quite insistent on the phone about my visit.’

‘I’m insisting too.’

‘Well then, I’ll see you soon, darling girl. Don’t forget to call into Marco’s on the way home to get your frames.’

Emma manually winds down the windows on her bug and waves her arm out the window until she rounds the curve at the bottom of the drive.

\--------

Looking around, Killian can’t help but smile at the scene before him. His apartment full of some of his closest friends all happily engaged in conversation or the game. Liam and David seem to have hit it off beautifully and his brother already knew Robin from previous visits. And Nate, well he seems to be holding his own. He’s easy-going, intelligent and clearly thinks the world of Belle. Likes sport enough to be welcomed swiftly to the fold. He’d discretely given Belle a double thumbs up earlier which she’d rolled her eyes at but then he’d swiftly received a peck to the cheek soon after.

He’s refilling drinks in the kitchen when Regina calls him over to the window with her eyebrow arched. He looks out at what was so important.

_Emma._

He sees her bug pulling up in the street and then her stepping out, stretching her neck from side to side from the long drive.

He’s out the door and dashing down the stairs in an instant. Vaguely, he registers Regina’s sassy comment to Robin’s question of ‘Where’s the fire?’ but right now he doesn’t care.

He pushes open the front door and then she’s there. Feet away at the bottom of the steps.

‘Surprise,’ she smiles.

‘God, love,’ he strides toward her and pulls her to him feeling his heart settle with her head tucked beneath his chin whispering into her hair how much he’s missed her. They’ve talked every day but it’s not the same. It could never be the same as having her by his side.

‘I’ve missed you too,’ she says pulling back to stroke his cheek.

‘How much?’

She answers with a kiss that warms him to the soles of his feet.

‘Does that answer your question?’ she teases biting her lip.

‘Gods, love. I so wish my apartment wasn’t full of our friends and family right now.’ He wanted her to be here for this, but he also wants her to himself. Selfish as that may be.

He kisses her again. Peppering her face in amongst his questions. ‘How was your drive? How’s Ruth? I thought you weren’t back until tomorrow?’

Giggling she pushes him away, ‘I need my lips back if I’m going to answer your questions.’

‘Damn it. I really didn’t think that plan through.’

He’d quite happily spend hours out here grinning at her but that makes no sense when he has a perfectly good apartment upstairs.

‘Come on up, love.’ He says linking their fingers together and picking up her bag.

Emma is swept up and out of his arms into those of her brother’s as soon as she makes it through the door and then David’s pushed aside by Mary Margaret who insists she must be tired and starts fussing and fixing Emma a plate of food. Emma grins at him and he can only shrug his shoulders. It is Mary Margaret after all. What else could they expect?

‘Come on, love. Let’s go say hello and then I’ll get you a drink.’

‘Verdict on Belle’s date?’ Emma whispers into his shoulder.

‘Nate. Good guy. I like him.’

‘I’m glad. I’m too tired to deal with someone on the shit-list right now.’ She snuggles into his shoulder and he laughs pressing a kiss to her hair.

There’s a chorus of ‘Emmas’ as she makes her way into the lounge and is greeted by questions about her arrival. Killian introduces her to Nate and can’t help the grin that tugs at his lips when Emma introduces herself as ‘Killian’s girlfriend and David’s long-suffering sister.’ Girlfriend. She’s so much more than that but hearing her speak so openly of them, their relationship, warms his heart.

(He pretends not to notice David putting a hand over Mary Margaret’s mouth to stop her from squealing in delight.)

‘You left out that Nate is super cute,’ she teases.

He pinches her side and pretends to huff when Liam comes out of the kitchen with refills for everyone. He feels Emma tense slightly beneath his palm but she’s moving to greet Liam with a smile on her face.

‘Emma! Killian said we weren’t expecting you until tomorrow.’

He’s relieved to see Liam pull her in for a hug and sees that Emma’s reply of wanting to surprise Killian earns her a nod of approval. ‘It’s good to finally meet you in person, lass.’

‘You too, Liam.’

‘What’ll you be drinking?’ Liam moves back to the kitchen to fix her drink and Killian moves back to her side silently asking her if she’s okay. She nods, understanding the question in his gaze.

‘I might just go a change real quick. I feel pretty disgusting after the drive.’

‘Okay, love. Leo’s having a kip in my room at the min but go ahead.’

He watches her disappear through the door into his room and doesn’t even try to wipe the grin from his face. His Swan is home.

\--------

Killian’s friends are a pretty great bunch. He’d met Robin before, of course but seeing his brother’s home filled with good people who clearly care so much about him fills his pride and eases the ever-present worry he will always feel towards Killian. He knows his brother doesn’t need him to worry about him so much. Knows he needs to see him as the rest of the world does – an intelligent, successful and responsible man. Liam knows this and yet he will always feel the need to fiercely protect Killian. When he closes his eyes he can still see the little, lost boy who sobbed that he was all alone in the absence of their parents.

He shakes away the memory and asks who wants refills before busying himself in the kitchen. Killian rises to help him despite Liam’s protestations that he’s fine.

‘Your friends are great, Killian.’

‘Aye, thanks. They’re a good bunch.’

‘I’ll even excuse them for referring to what’s on the television as ‘football’.’ Killian laughs knowing full well that Liam loves American Football.

Someone calls Killian away – Robin’s wife, he thinks – and he busies himself with sorting the drinks. He turns up the radio slightly so that he can keep track of the game while he works. It’s a few minutes later when he hears a bit of a commotion from the main room but he assumes it’s due to the game until he steps from the kitchen and sees Emma tucked into his brother’s side.

He knows Killian wasn’t expecting her until tomorrow and can clearly see how much it has pleased his brother from the smile on his face.

He takes a moment to watch and sees how close they stand. Watches as Emma leans in to whisper something into his shoulder with a smile on her face only to see his little brother playfully pinch her side. She squirms from his touch but then he presses a kiss to her temple and all is forgiven.

He hasn’t seen his brother like this. Content in a relationship. It warms and worries him at the same time.

‘Emma!’ he calls out in surprise. He places the tray of drinks down and pulls her for a hug exclaiming that they weren’t expecting her until tomorrow.

She smiles up at him and though he can tell she’s a little nervous, he can only nod happily at her honest answer – ‘I missed home and your brother. Thought I’d surprise him.’

He goes to make her a drink but it’s Killian who takes the drink from him on his return. ‘Swan’s gone to change.’

Liam heads toward his own room to check on his phone where it’s plugged in to charge to see if he has any messages from Elsa or work. He pushes open his door to find Emma changing her top.

‘Crap!’ she yells covering herself with the blouse she was about to put on.

‘Sorry, lass. I wasn’t expecting you in here,’ he mumbles down towards the carpet avoiding his eyes.

‘It’s fine. My fault sorry. Killian always says I ‘dress loudly’ whatever that means and I didn’t want to wake Leo.’

He chuckles at his brother’s words.

‘All done,’ he hears Emma say and he looks up to see she is dressed, if a little flushed. ‘I really am sorry, Liam.’

‘No harm done. I was only coming to check on my phone.’

‘How are Elsa and Poppy?’ Emma asks as she puts away the few things taken from her case.

‘Aye, good thanks. Great.’ He says as he closes down his work emails. He catches sight of the framed photograph lying on the bed before Emma can pack it back into her case.

The frame is beautiful. Hand-made he would say. But it’s the photograph inside that truly catches his eye. Killian and Emma are dancing. He wonders where they were to be dressed up in such attire but he can’t pull himself away from his brother’s face in the photograph. He knows the look of a Jones in love all too well. He looks happy. Blissfully so.

‘This is beautiful,’ he says handing the frame back to Emma.

‘Thank you. My friend Marco is a bit of a magician with wood,’ she says gently laying it back on the top of the bag. ‘He was kind enough to make it for me to give to Killian while I was at home.’

He smiles, getting the sense that Emma isn’t all too fond of taking a compliment. ‘Aye, lass. It’s lovely but I meant the shot of the two of you was beautiful.’

‘Oh,’ she blushes slightly. ‘Yeah, I like it.’

‘Where were you both dressed to the nines?’

‘It was the charity event that Mary Margaret and I held,’ she replies zipping her bag closed.

The charity event that had Killian phoning him in pieces afterwards. The fight that gives him reason to doubt Emma and worry for his brother’s heart.

‘Emma, lass,’ he says and she stops by the door. He doesn’t quite know where to start and he watches as Emma’s brow furrows.

‘I’m glad you’re here, Liam,’ she nods kindly and only makes him feel like more of an arse for what he’s about to do. ‘You mean the world to him.’

‘He means the world to me too.’

He lets out an exhale.

‘The question is, I guess. Does he mean the world to you, Emma?’

For a moment she looks taken aback by the turn of the conversation but then he sees the way she tenses up. Straightens her back and forces herself to meet his gaze.

'Look, Emma. I liked you.’ Now he’s started, he may as well get this out in the open. ‘I liked how happy you made my brother. I liked seeing the daft smile on his face when he spoke of you, but he's been strung along before and it nearly ruined him.’ Emma doesn’t take her eyes from his thought he can desperately see that she wants to.

‘So I am saying that if you are giving him false hope right now with whatever it is that you two are doing again then you need to walk away.’ He hears his volume rise slightly as he remembers those weeks after Milah. ‘If you’re not sure then you need to walk away, because I _won't_ stand by and watch him be hurt again by someone not being honest with him. He doesn't -

‘Liam. _Enough_.’

Liam glances behind Emma to where Killian has appeared in the door frame. His face tightly holding together his anger. Anger directed toward him. The bite in his words doing nothing to match the expression on his face.

Liam opens his mouth to respond (not quite knowing what to say) but is cut off by Emma turning and squeezing past Killian. Killian catches her arm for a moment but whatever he sees there, he lets her go with a sigh.

He sees the pain on his brother’s face and realises that it isn’t because Emma’s walked away from the conversation, but because she’s hurting. Because he hurt her. He feels awful already.

‘Brother, I was only-‘

-No. No. Liam you have no idea.’ Killian shouts. He then clearly remembers that he has a houseful of guests and moves into the room shutting the door behind him. His volume returns to normal but he is downright angry. Liam knows he probably deserves it, but he _has_ to be sure. He’s only trying to look out for him.

‘You have no idea about what Emma has been through to get here. How damn hard she is working so that the two of us can have a future. How she is facing all of the _shitty_ things life has thrown at her so that we can move forward. _Together._  How many scars her past relationship has left her with. How damn worried she was about coming back here to meet _you_ and I reassured her, like a fool, that you would love her for who she was and how happy she makes me! 

‘Killian, I –

-I'm not done.’ Killian steps closer to him and it is one of the few times he has truly seen his brother angry this way. Protective. ‘You don't get to come here and insult the woman I love, Liam. She's bloody fantastic and she doesn't deserve the way you laid into her.’

Liam hangs his head feeling like the arsehole that he is. He accepts that there’s much he doesn’t know, hasn’t seen of their relationship. Killian knows her. Truly knows her. This isn’t like Milah where Liam never met her. Killian wanted so desperately for him to meet Emma. And Emma had wanted to meet him. He shakes his head. He doubts she’ll look forward to his visits now. How has he so royally messed this up?

‘You really do love her, don’t you?’

He watches as the anger falls away from his brother at the question.

‘Aye. With everything I have.’

‘Does she know?’

His brother smiles to himself, ‘Aye, she does.’

‘Christ.’ He drags a hand through his hair and sits on the end of the bed hanging his head in shame. ‘I didn't realise, Killian that you and her were on the same page. I didn't know how hard she was working to get to you. That she’d had such a tough run.’ He adds desperately - ‘You never said.’

‘Liam, it's her business who Emma tells that to.’

The silence hangs thick and heavy between them. Killian moves to leave but Liam halts him with a hand on his arm. 

'Will she have left?'

Killian shakes his head. 'She's probably down by the water.'

'Like you then.'

'Aye'

'Killian, let me go.' 

'Liam, I - '

'I owe the woman you love a rather sizeable apology and I would rather do it now and try to make amends before it ruins your whole night.'

Killian seems to weigh this up for a moment before he jerks his head in assent and Liam follows him to the front door.

'Here, take this.' Killian says grabbing Emma’s jacket from its space beside his own. 

His little brother is right. He can make out Emma's figure standing down by the water. Her arms wrapped tightly around herself against the cool night air. 

'Here,' Liam says holding her jacket out before her. His intrusion on her solitude causes her body to jerk at the sound of his voice. She takes her jacket from him wordlessly and pulls it on. He can't help but smile when he sees her pull a beanie hat - one he recognises as his brother's - from the pocket and pulls it firmly down over her ears. It also serves to make him feel worse.

'Emma, I owe you an apology.' He begins. She continues to look out at the water ahead of them. 'I worry about Killian, often too much, and I was merely trying to protect his happiness when I think I probably did the opposite.'

She turns then to look at him and he notes again the squaring of her shoulders and the determination in her eyes. He imagines that she’s been let down by people one too many times before and now he can add himself to that list.

'Look, Liam you don't need to apologise for looking out for Killian. I have an overprotective brother of my own, I get it.  You _do_ need to apologise for how you spoke to me. You don't know me. You don't know what...' She cuts herself off which only serves to confirm what Killian had alluded to in her past. 'You get to be protective of Killian, but you _don't_ get to judge me and talk down to me about things you know nothing about.'

He lets her words wash over him and sees then that she is exactly the kind of woman she had hoped her to be from conversations with Killian. Smart, honest and what he had hoped for the most - loyal. 

'I am sorry, Emma. I mean that and I have no intention of being so rude or unfeeling again.' 

She nods abruptly. 'Thank you.'

'You know, my brother pretty much said the exact same thing as you.' 

'Well we both know who the smarter Jones brother is then.' And he's pleased to see the tug of a smile at the corner of her mouth. 

'Aye, always has been and always will be. Just don't tell him I said that.'

She turns then to walk back inside and he can see how wrong he was about her. This isn't a woman ready to play with his brother's heart. This is a woman who will fight to be by his side. She turns abruptly to face in his direction once more. 

'For the record, Liam. I do think the world of him.' 

He just nods and let's her walk away taking a moment to revel in the calm of the water. He misses his naval career deep in his bones but he will never regret his decision to spend more time with his wife and daughter. He will never regret that fact that he can keep in touch with his brother more readily. 

He heads back to the house hoping he is allowed to get to spend a little more time with the makeshift family his brother appears to be making for himself. 

As he steps back into the warmth of the apartment he spots his brother and Emma deep in conversation ahead of him where the hallway opens into the lounge making him pull up short. He can't quite make out what they are saying but he feels regret at the way Killian's brows are furrowed. He can read his unease from here. He watches as Emma steps closer into his space and pulls Killian's hand to rest on her waist. Whatever she must say to him seems to work as Killian smiles. A thing full of hope and appreciation that makes Liam feel paternal.

He watches as Killian says something that earns a teasing slap on the chest from Emma before Killian pulls her (his) beanie from her head. They're wrestling for possession of the garment when they catch sight of him standing there. Emma takes the opportunity to pluck the hat from Killian's fingers and rolls it back up to slot into her pocket. 

He suddenly feels bashful under their gaze. Wonders how close he had come to throwing a wrench in the works. He's trying desperately to think of something - anything - to say when David rounds the corner.

‘Everything alright here?’ he asks generally but the way his arms are crossed suggest he has at least some idea of what’s transpired.

‘All good, bro,’ Emma smiles at him from where she is tucked into Killian’s side. David claps Killian on the shoulder and heads back into the lounge.

That’s what being a big brother is, he thinks. That’s what he should have done. Not humiliated someone out of fear and lack of understanding.

'You both do that then?' Emma hums and Killian chuckles beside her jolting Liam from his reverie.

'I'm sorry, lass. I don't follow.' 

'The embarrassed little touch behind you ear.' 

'Oh,' he says as he withdraws his hand from exactly where Emma had said. 

He catches Killian's eye and relief floods through him at the small smile on his face. 

'I don't know about you two,' his brother begins, 'but I could do with another drink.' 

He knows the invitation is meant for him. It's clear that where Killian is Emma will be and that the both of them are making the effort to put Liam's mind at ease. They're becoming something of a team, he realises in the words unspoken in their looks and the way in which they both turn to one another for support. And anyone on his brother's team is worthy of his time in his eyes. Now he just needs to prove to Emma that he’s not always a complete arsehole.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again for your patience and support with this story! I am hoping that the longer chapter will make up for the delay. Only one more chapter and an epilogue to go.


	20. Chapter 20

Everyone clears out fairly swiftly once the game ends. Robin and Regina heading off the relieve their sitter for Roland and the Nolans retrieving a sleeping Leo from the guest room.

You’d have to be blind to not see David pulling Emma aside on his way out. Killian is left in no doubt as to what that’s about.

_Liam._

Belle and Nate are quick to follow and Killian is pleased to say that he genuinely means it when he says that he and Nate should grab a beer some time. Belle blushes happily and kisses Killian’s cheek whispering a ‘Thank you’ into his ear.

He could surely be forgiven forgetting at some points in the night that the purpose of tonight was for Belle (and maybe a little for his own piece of mind that she was in good hands). Everything else left his mind when he’d peered out of his window to see Emma.

She was here. She was home.

He glances up from where he is in the kitchen to see Emma stacking plates to bring through. She glances up and catches his eye and he falls for her a little more.

‘Emma, I’ve moved your things back into Killian’s room for you.’ Liam says as he emerges from the room that is to be his own for the week.

‘Thanks’

‘I’m just going to have a quick shower and turn in for the night,’ Liam nods toward them both and leaves the way he came clearly still ill at ease after his actions earlier in the night.

Killian thinks maybe he should sweat it out a little while.

Emma is beside him rinsing plates and he moves to work alongside her to stack them into the dishwasher.

‘Lass, I know he’s moved your bags across the hall, but you don’t have to stay here tonight.’

Emma turns to him. Confusion in her features.

‘I only meant, that if you would rather you and I headed to your place then stay here with Liam then I understand.’ At her silence, he suddenly panics that maybe she just wants to head off by herself. ‘Or, I mean, of course you may just want a night to yourself.’

She surges forward and presses kiss to his lips. ‘You’re here. I’ve had my fill of nights to myself for now thanks.’

And just like that he thinks his heart may beat out of his chest. ‘You sure, love?’

‘Positive’

When they do finally curl up in bed he revels in the warmth of her resting across his chest. The smell of her hair. Something he is fast associating with a sense of home.

‘Are you sure you’re okay after earlier?’ he whispers. She’d been so strong and so forgiving and he loves her for it, but he knows Emma. Knows how Liam’s words must have hurt her. They hurt him too.

She shifts beside him until she’s on her side facing him. He twists to mirror her position and mindlessly plays with the ends of her hair.

‘Yeah, I think I am. What he said really bothered me and it bothered me because I knew it would upset you too. I know how close the two of you are and I would hate to be the cause of any problems between the two of you.’

‘You’re not. This is on him.’ He says roughly. Willing her to believe him. This _is_ on Liam.

‘You’re probably right, but the thing is I guess I just wanted him to like me.’ She shrugs. ‘He’s your family.’

He cups her cheek in his palm wishing he could tell her that she is his family too. Instead he settles for something else.

‘Well Elsa is my family too and she’s a damn sight less self-righteous.’

She smiles as she burrows herself into his chest. Good. He wanted to make her smile.

‘It’s not really like him, love. I mean he’s always overprotective of me and is known to get on his soap box but he’s rarely rude like that.’

‘I could see that in how he was the rest of the night and how he was times I spoke to him on the phone. Maybe you should talk to him.’

He leans down to press a kiss into her hair. ‘Aye. You’re amazing, you know?’

‘Hmmm, well you see there is this handsome Brit who keeps telling me this. Maybe I should keep him around?’

Pretending to be outraged he flips them until he has her pinned beneath him. ‘There’s no maybe about it.’

She giggles as he moves to tickle her. The sound chasing away his worries.

\--------

Liam wasn’t there when she’d got out of the shower in the morning. Killian was up and dressed for work already explaining that Liam had left early for his meeting. She kisses him goodbye as they get into their respective cars. Coming back a day early means she has the luxury of a day to herself though she can’t deny that she’s keen to get back again to work with a clear head. Ruby has text her typically dramatic updates while she was away but it’s not the same.

David calls her announcing that he’s flattered she came all the way back to not miss Wednesday lunch with him and so she finds herself sitting across from him in their usual spot a few hours later. Finds herself laughing when he regales her with Mary Margaret’s plans for Ruth’s visit.

‘You look good, Em,’ David smiles.

‘That’s what a week of home-cooking does for you.’

‘Well now you know how I keep my glow. My wife is a dab hand in the kitchen.’

Really, Emma isn’t sure the last time they’ve got through a Wednesday lunch without her throwing a french fry at him at some point. This one he manages to catch in the corner of his mouth like some of salty cigarette.

‘You’re more of a child than Leo.’

‘Nobody could be more of anything than him.’ Her brother gets that same boyish look of wonderment in his eyes every time he speaks of his son and Emma knows without fail that he will be as good a parent to his boy as Ruth was to him. To them.

‘Thank you for ringing me about Neal while I was away too.’ She shakes her head still surprised at the sense of freedom it’s bought her. ‘I didn’t know quite how much I needed to hear it until I did.’

Her brother reaches across the table to squeeze her hand. ‘You deserve all the happiness that’s coming your way. Neal is behind all of us now.’

She nods biting down on her lip against the swell of emotion. He always did know the right thing to say to her. And now there’s two of them because somehow Killian can do it too.

‘Was it all okay with Liam after we left last night?’

What can she say? She doesn’t know Liam well enough to figure this one out. ‘Yeah, he said goodnight and turned in. I think Killian is kind of worried about him. He says it’s not like him and yeah, he was rude to me last night but he apologised and he meant it. I don’t know,’ she shrugs, ‘It didn’t really seem like the kind of thing he would typically do or it wouldn’t have gotten to Killian so much.’

‘Emma, I love you but are you kidding me?’ David leans back against the back of the booth and raises an eyebrow in challenge of her. ‘Anything or anyone that upsets you would get to Killian. Surely you know that by now?’

She can feel the heat flooding her cheeks but it’s not as if David doesn’t know how she feels about Killian. ‘Yeah, I guess so.’

Her brother chuckles across from her. ‘Always so forthcoming, little sis’.’

‘Well I don’t want to make you jealous. I know how much you love Killian and your little bromance.’

‘Damn straight.’

‘I should warn you know that Ruth has firmly set her sights on him. She’s a fan of his ‘ocean blue’ eyes. Thought they were photoshopped.’ She smirks popping a french fry into her mouth.

‘Oh lord.’

She laughs watching her brother squirm at the thought of his mother noticing anything about the features of another man.

‘You know,’ he says straightening up. His tone suddenly serious, ‘She really will love him.’

‘Yeah,’ she nods. ‘It’s kind of hard not to.’

David’s smile might just be as wide as hers.

She mulls the conversation she’s had with David about Liam round and round in her head all afternoon until she decides to bite the bullet.

She was always better acting and she doesn’t want Killian hurt and for all his words or reassurance and comfort, if there is any awkwardness between she and Liam then he’ll notice. She doesn’t want that. She doesn’t want him to feel like he’s torn. Divided. She’s walked that path when she was with Neal and knowing what it can be like, what it should be like now she’s with Killian well, she wants him to have that too.

Grabbing her keys, she drives over to Killian’s apartment thinking that Liam’s meetings are likely done for the day. She spies his rental tucked into one of the guest bays and quickly exits the car so that she doesn’t lose her nerve.

His surprise shows when he opens the door and suddenly Emma feels out of place. So used to being greeted at this door by being pulled inside for a kiss, she now feels nervous. She stuffs her hands into the pockets of her jackets for something to do.

‘Come in, Emma.’ Liam says moving aside. ‘I don’t think Killian will be back for a while yet.’

‘Well I came to see you.’

‘You did?’

‘Yeah. Thought we could go grab a drink since I’m off today still and I thought you might need one after your meeting?’

Shock registers on Liam’s face briefly before he laughs and it sounds so like Killian’s laugh that her nerves leave her.

‘That sounds like a brilliant plan, lass. If I see another spreadsheet today I may have a conniption.’ He tugs on his coat and grabs his keys. ‘How about we go to The Scarlet Goat? I’ve been there a few times when I’ve been in town?’

Everything about Liam suddenly seems lighter. Warmer. This, Emma realises, is the Liam she’d met over the phone.

‘Sounds like a plan. I like it there. I’ve been there before with Killian.’

‘Oh yeah?’ Liam asks as he holds open the elevator door for her. She smiles. The Jones brothers have a lot of mannerisms alike despite an ocean between them.

Smiling, she explains. ‘Yeah. Your brother claims it was our third date.’

‘Claims?’

‘Well it was the third time I’d met him. Once at a sponsor’s party and then at David’s birthday. I tried to tell him it was technically our first date, but he was having none of it.’ She grins at the memory of how flustered he’d gotten after she’d called him out on it. Worrying about her thinking he had ‘third date’ ideas in mind.

‘You know, I do know about that come to think of it.’ Liam adds.

‘You do?’ She turns to face him wondering just what he knows.

‘Aye,’ he nods. ‘He told me you asked him for another date at the end of the night.’

A smile tugs on the corner of her lips. She had. ‘You know I felt so nervous doing that,’ she admits. Talking to Liam – this Liam – is easy.

‘Well you had no reason to be, lass. I think my brother would do anything you ask.’

‘I…yeah. I do know that.’ And she does. She knows that as certainly as she does her own name. ‘I would never take advantage of his kindness though.’ She needs Liam to be certain of that fact.

‘Whoah, Emma I know.’ Liam tugs on her elbow stopping them both on the sidewalk. ‘I promise that’s not what I was trying to insinuate. Wanting to do anything for the woman you love is how it should be. I’d move heaven and earth and then some for Elsa.’

Emma nods searching his face for any sign of lie.

She finds none.

‘I know I apologised last night, Emma but I do need you to know that I intend to make it up to you if you’ll let me. I have no wish to hurt your relationship with my brother when I can plainly see how happy you make him.’

‘Good.’

Liam lets out a breath and drags a hand over his face looking relieved and Emma sees how anxious it had made him.

‘Did you really think I’d not accept your apology?’

‘I wouldn’t have blamed you, lass,’ he acknowledges. ‘Elsa said that you would, but I guess I was just worried and I don’t want to hurt you further. Or my brother.’

‘That we can agree on.’ She proffers her hand to him, ‘Friends?’

He shakes her hand smiling. ‘I’d like nothing more.’

They continue on their journey down the block when an idea suddenly comes to mind. An idea that has her heart beating a little faster and a smile gracing her face. ‘Hey, Liam?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You really don’t need to make it up to me. Your apology is enough, but there is something you could help me organise if you’re up for it?’

‘Count me in.’

She fills Liam in on her plan for Friday as they walk and he’s fully onboard. Even goes as far to tell her to ring Ruby now rather than later. He laughs heartily when he hears Ruby swear like a sailor on the other end in support of the plan.

\---------

_At The Scarlet Goat with Liam for a drink. Come join us when you’re done._

He’d read the message three times just to check he’s seen it right. It settles something in his chest and pleases him to no end. He was truthful with Emma last night when said that this was on Liam, but the thought of the two of them at odds fills him with sadness.

The sight before him though - when he pushes open the door to The Goat - solidifies the feeling that it will be just fine. Liam and Emma are sitting at a table upstairs on the balcony overlooking the main floor. His brother wildly gesticulating about something or other that has Emma smiling.

He grabs himself a beer from the bar and heads upstairs.

‘Brother!’

Liam stands to slap him on the back and pulls him over a chair.

He leans across to kiss Emma hello.

‘How was your day?’ she breathes.

‘Pretty good,’ he says looping his jacket over the back of his chair and rolling up his shirt sleeves.

While still on his feet, Liam turns to Emma. ‘Shall I get us another drink? Same again?’

‘Sure. Thank you.’

He watches the exchange between them and it seems at ease. Comfortable. Any of the tension from the night before dissipated.

His gaze drifts to his brother at the bar below then takes in Emma’s smiling face as she watches _him._

‘Gods, Emma. You don’t know what this means to me that you did this.’

She leans across to squeeze his arm lightly. ‘Actually, I do.’

And he knows she does from the way her eyes shine with understanding. Knows it because his closeness with the Nolans and his easy camaraderie with Ruby means the world to her too.

‘Thank you,’ he breathes turning her palm up on the table to tangle their fingers together. He vows to himself there and then that he will never let her feel like they are anything but partners. In this and everything else. She did this for him. Inviting Liam out. Spending time with him. Faced it head on and with an openness that he knows must terrify her.

Liam’s arse is barely on his seat before he’s talking. Finally shedding some light on his out of character behaviour as of late. ‘I’d like to explain myself last night, a little. If the two of you are willing to hear me out.’

‘I’ve accepted your apology, Liam.’ Emma says kindly.

‘I know, lass. I know that and I’ve loved spending some time with you getting to know you a bit better this afternoon but I need to try and explain my actions a bit better and I’d like you to hear them to as well as Killian.’

Killian reaches over and squeezes his brother on the shoulder silently encouraging him to continue.

‘Elsa says I’m an idiot for not telling you sooner,’ his brother offers lightly and suddenly fear grips Killian’s chest like a cold hand around his heart.

‘Brother, are you ill?

‘What? No.’ Liam grasps his shoulder roughly forcing Killian to meet his eye and see the truth there. ‘Killian, my health is fine. Nothing wrong with me bar me making a fool of myself.’

He feels the warmth of Emma’s hand squeezing his knee and he places his on top of it. Anchoring himself to her.

Liam takes a swig of his beer and continues. ‘Ever since Poppy was born I’ve been filled with guilt.’

Guilt? Killian has no idea where this is heading. ‘Liam, what would you have to feel guilty about?

‘You.’

‘Me?’

His brother looks down at the beer mat on the table, picking at the cork edges. ‘I think I’m doing a pretty good job of being the kind of Dad Poppy deserves and I tried, Killian, I really tried my _damned hardest_ but I couldn’t be that kind of Dad to you. I loved you with all that I had but you were still just a kid and you deserved a better Dad than me. I let you down and I don’t know how I can ever make that up to you.’

The last words are choked out and Killian can’t speak himself. He tightens his grip on Emma’s hand and wills himself to breathe. This is what has Liam so skittish, so at odds with his values of ‘good form’? How could he ever comprehend how wrong he is? Liam was _everything_ to Killian in the wake of his father leaving. He filled up every dark space and saved him like some knight in shining armour.

‘Please say something, brother,’ Liam urges him.

‘Liam, gods….’ he swipes at the tear he didn’t give permission too. Desperately wishes that he doesn’t lose his emotions and cry in a bar. ‘Don’t you ever think that. Don’t you ever think that you let me down. You didn’t. You haven’t. You were more of a father to me than ours ever was.’

He meets his brother’s eyes once more and sees only a question there and this feels so foreign to Killian. That it is he who needs to guide his brother, but he refuses to let Liam think he let him down in any way.

‘Without doubt.’ He sees the way in which Liam looks a little less uncertain and it urges him on. ‘I wouldn’t be the man I am now without you and unless you sit here looking at me thinking I’m a worthless little arse than you need to realise that you did a damn good job.’

His brother’s voice is thick with the same kind of emotion as his own. ‘I guess I did okay then.’

‘You were _there_ , Liam and you took care of me. You have always showed up for me. That was all I needed.’

Liam rises and pulls him into a hug and Killian smiles hearing Emma’s sniffles behind him.

When they sit down, Liam takes in Emma’s sparkling eyes. ‘I’d better not tell Elsa I’ve made you cry now too.’

‘These are good tears,’ Emma smiles and shifts her chair closer to Killian’s.

‘I know I should have said something before. I just didn’t know how and every time I spend quality time with Poppy and I teach her something new it was reminding me so much of how I fudged everything with you. I had no idea what I was doing.’ He laughs lightly.

‘Weren’t you about eighteen?’ Emma asks.

‘Aye.’

‘Emma’s right, Liam,’ he adds. ‘You were barely an adult yourself and of course you’re going to be a different kind of Dad to Poppy now. That’s normal and right because you actually _are_ her Dad, Liam. I know there must have been times when you felt more like my Dad than my brother for a few years there, but I’m okay. Because of you. I don’t need a Dad any more. I just need my brother.’

Liam can’t hide the pride in his eyes when he looks over at him and Killian gets how hard it must have been. How many sacrifices Liam made for him.

‘I see that. I just haven’t acted that way recently and I’m sorry that you took some of the brunt of that, Emma.’

‘It’s okay, Liam,’ she nods.

Her forgiveness and acceptance of Liam’s words and actions is real and genuine and this is an Emma who is willing to move forward. For him. For them.

Lost in his thoughts he barely registers Emma’s joke about needing to meet Elsa soon as she seems so wise. He doesn’t quite catch Liam’s sarcastic retort. Not when Killian can’t quite move past the fact that he is sitting with his _family_. He’d felt it last night when Emma had returned but it hits him square in the chest now that Emma Swan is everything to him.

Of course the Jones family of two had grown a little over the last few years with Elsa and Poppy and the ever amusing appearances of Elsa’s hyper-optimistic little sister but this time his family is growing because someone chose him. Emma chose him. Chooses him.

She cups his cheek in her palm pulling him from his thoughts. ‘Hey, Jones. You okay?’

He nods. A little breathless. ‘Aye.’

\--------

It must be the third time she’s checked her watch in the space of a minute and seeing that time doesn’t move any quicker through sheer will, she begins to pace again.

It’s a cool evening now the sun is down and though her breath spirals in the air before her the warmth from the candles and the portable heater keeps her warm on the deck. She’d promised Ruby and Mary Margaret photographs on pain of death but now that she’s sent them she’s too embarrassed to look at their responses.

There are candles everywhere. And fairly lights and a blanket and a case of the same beer that he’d had in his car that night and this is by far the most romantic thing she has ever done and, well, she’s got herself nervous.

Maybe she should have just told him. Told him when he left her house this morning or when he called her at work to tell her some cheesy medical joke he was sure she’d appreciate. Maybe she shouldn’t have decided on a route which is likely to bring her out in stress hives in the next five minutes and have ambulances arriving at Victor’s house.

Maybe she should have just told him every time she has felt it in recent weeks instead of employing Liam to take his brother out for a farewell dinner before his flight home tomorrow. Instead of utilising Ruby’s powers of persuasion to ensure she and Victor stayed at Ruby’s for the night giving Emma access to Victor’s back yard.

Suddenly she hears soft footsteps and turns to see a slightly bemused looking Killian walking across the lawn towards her.

‘Hey,’ she smiles giving free reign to the grin that spreads across her face.

He shakes his head in wonderment as he moves closer towards her taking in the scene before him. The deck covered in lights. The gift bags, the blanket and the heater.

‘Swan. This is…’

Finally, finally he is before her and he pulls her to his chest and if ever she needed confirmation that this is home then it’s here. Here in the safety of his arms and the way it makes her feel like she can do anything.

He laughs pressing kisses all over her face. ‘This is where we met.’

‘I know.’ She toys with the charm that hangs on the chain around his neck and presses a kiss to the column of his throat.

‘Please tell me that this isn’t some sort of house swap for the night and that I’m going to have to burn the sheets in my apartment after Vic and Ruby have been there.’

She laughs at the genuine note of concern in his voice. ‘I would never inflict that upon your brother!’

‘But you’d think nothing about my poor sheets,’ he grumbles and she silences him with a kiss.

She looks up at him and sees the love shining in his eyes and she knows she can do this. ‘So, I’m not very good at this –‘

‘-kissing, Swan?’ he grins leaning to nose kisses along her jaw. ‘I’d say you’re in the top percentile.’

‘I’m serious, Killian!’ she cries, swatting him away. ‘Let me do this.’

He tugs down the edges of her beanie so her ears are fully covered (It will never be his again no matter how hard he tries) and nods softly for her to continue.

‘I got you a couple of things actually,’ she says moving to the gift bags on the floor.

He looks in disbelief that she’s gone to all this effort and the way in which he so carefully opens what’s inside, as if any gift from her would be precious to him, has her feeling far too emotional.

The tissue paper drops away and the warm air of his laughter puffs into the night sky. ‘Well, I’m not sure you can call it a gift, love, when you have every intention of stealing it.’ He snaps the tag off and pulls the navy blue beanie onto his head. A match to Emma’s. To the one she’s taken custody of since that very first night.

‘Well this one wouldn’t have the same effect on my eyes as it does on yours,’ she grins. ‘It’s all for Ruth’s benefit really.’ She supposes her teasing does earn her the playful pinch to her side.

‘Shall I do the next one?’

Nodding quickly she bites her lip eager to see his reaction to the framed photograph of the two of them. ‘Emma,’ he breathes. ‘This is beautiful. I can’t say how much this means to me.’ He pulls her in for a kiss that warms her from the inside. ‘Thank you,’ he mutters against her lips.

She pulls back enough to meet his eyes and suddenly she can’t do anything else but tell him.

‘I love you.’

He stills for a second before pulling her to his lips and lifting her off her feet. She feels it in her heart and in his kiss. She loves him and it feels so good to say it.

‘I love you,’ she says again and she knows her smile must be as wide as the one Killian is wearing.

‘I love you too, Swan. With all that I have.’

‘I do have one more gift…’

‘I don’t need anything else, love,’ he says a little breathless and if his heart is racing anything like hers than she gets it.

‘You might just like this, mister.’

‘Lingerie?’ he teases waggling his brow.

‘I can always take it back…’ she grins backing away from him.

‘No chance, love.’ He wrestles it from her grasp victorious.

Now that she’s said those three words out loud. Found the comfort and the sense of home in speaking the words, this is the one she’s a little nervous about.

Reaching into the bag, he pulls out the smaller oblong box inside and slides off the lid.

‘Swan?’

Emma releases the breath she was holding.

‘Is this a key to your house? Are you…’

She watches him blush as he struggles to find the right words.

‘Are you asking me to move in with you?’

‘No.’

‘No?’

‘Well I mean that’s up to you,’ she bumbles feeling embarrassment tinge her cheeks.

‘That’s normally why people ask,’ Killian smiles at her. ‘Are you asking me, Emma?’

‘Yes.’

‘Yes.’

‘Yes?’

‘What do you mean, yes?’ Killian cries. ‘There’s no question about it. In what world would I ever say no to sharing a home with you?’

How does he always know the right thing to say to her?

‘But what about your place? Your apartment is great and it’s by the water and you love that.’

‘I love _you_ more, Emma. More than anything,’ he grins, ‘and certainly more than a building.’

‘Good answer.’

‘Well then I shall promise to always tell you that I love you more than a building.’

This is what it’s like she realises. Being with the right person for you. It’s laughter and honesty and knowing exactly how to make the other smile.

‘You’d better hold true to that, buddy but what I meant was that I want to live with you. Only I don’t mind where that is. I can come to you, if you’ll have me, or we can look for something new. I don’t mind where we are just that _we’re_ there.’

Killian looks at her in that way of his like he’s marveling at some great wonder. She’ll never quite understand it but she’s done trying to deny that she will always want his love. He winds their fingers together and tugs her over to the blanket at the edge. Settling down onto it he pulls Emma back against his chest.

‘You know, I know it sounds silly,’ she continues, ‘but there was this commercial on when I was a kid. It was for some cereal that is all kinds of colours a cereal shouldn’t be.’ Killian’s laugh huffs at the base of her neck. ‘And this whole commercial was about finding that magical place. This journey to find a home and that sense of home.’ She rolls her eyes. ‘I mean it’s advertising so of course that sense of home was really just a kitchen table with a bowl of their cereal on but when I saw that while I was stuck in another group home it just really struck a chord with me. I wanted that.’

‘A home of your own.’

‘Yeah.’

Kilian leads forward form behind so that his cheek leans against hers making her feel safe and loved. ‘Is that why you have a box of that stuff in your cupboard that’s about a year out of date?’

She nods. ‘I got it when I moved into the house. Like I’d finally found my home despite everything. I owned this lovely place by myself and it was mine,’ she pauses thinking just how wrong she was. ‘It wasn’t until I let myself fall for you that I realised how wrong I was. Home isn’t a place.’

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

‘It’s a person and mine is with you.’

Killian is quiet but presses a kiss to her hair and squeezes her to him. She knows her heart is safe with him, but she’s never shared that before and she just needs a second. He gets that. Of course he does.

‘I think you’re place would be good,’ he says. The warmth of his breath tickling the hair beneath her ear. ‘It’s a bit bigger and you have outside space. I do love being near the water, but maybe that’s something we can think about for the future.’

She pulls herself a little tighter into his embrace. ‘That sounds good.’

‘I love you.’

‘I do actually need that key back though.’

‘What?’ He says in mock outrage.

‘I was trying to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything for tonight and it is damn hard to track down those stupid beers you like and well, I sort of forgot to get another key cut.’

Killian is silent behind her but she can hear the vibrations from his contained laughter. Twisting behind her she flicks his chin. Hard.

‘Ow!’

‘Don’t laugh at me.’

‘With you, Swan. I’m laughing with you. Always with you.’ Finally, he regains some semblance of self-control. His voice low when he speaks again. ‘I think I’d better come home with you then, love.’

Damn him. He knows full well what he’s doing making his voice all gravelly. ‘Maybe if you get me a beer…’ she shrugs trying to feign immunity to his charm.

They share a couple of beers wrapped up in one another as the stars thread their tales across the sky. They’ve blown out most of the candles in order to better see them but have kept the heater going so they don’t freeze, despite Killian’s protestations that he is more than man enough to keep Emma warm.

He returns his gaze to Emma’s face after having explained to her the various constellations on show for them and speaks softly.

‘I could stay here forever.’

She lifts their tangled hands and presses a kiss to his knuckles. ‘What about when Victor and Ruby return and we can hear them having -‘

She’s cut off my Killian’s fingers on her lips but they’re shaken off by her laughter.

‘Okay, Swan,’ he says fixing her with that look. The one full of love and hope and a promise of everything. ‘How about this then? I could spend forever with you.’

Yes. Her heart whispers. Yes, in every way. Closing the distance between them she kisses the man she loves and trusts more than she thought would ever be possible.

‘I could spend forever with you too.’

‘Good.’

‘Good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this is it! Thank you so much for your kind comments and support for this story. I've never written a multi-chapter before but I have loved telling this story. An epilogue to follow at some point in the not too distant future!


	21. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the delay in getting this final chapter out. I've had it written for a while but as it's vaguely festive, I thought I'd wait until it was the season for it. Thank you so much for your support of this story. Every comment and kudos is so appreciated. I hope you enjoy where this leaves off.

‘It’s too early.’

‘It’s eight-thirty, love.’

‘It’s too early.’

‘Are you going to keep repeating that, Swan?’

‘Is it going to change the fact that it’s eight thirty on a day off?’

She hears him shuffle beside her to check the clock on her bedside table. ‘Yes, actually. It’s now eight thirty-one.’

She hears rather than sees the smile in his voice, still stubbornly refusing to open her eyes. She makes an attempt to pull the covers back over her when she feels his hands entwine with her own.

‘At some point today, you’re going to need to open your eyes, Emma. That’s just a fact.’

She squeezes her eyes shut further – if that’s possible.

‘I promise this day will be more enjoyable with your eyes open.’

She stubbornly opens one eye.

Grinning, Killian leans forward to kiss her mouth. ‘One eye is better than none I suppose.’

He’s not wrong. Even with one eye closed, his handsome face has already brightened her day.

‘Maybe you’ll just have to convince me to open the other.’

She must look a fool. One eye scrunched shut and she’s fairly certain that Killian still thinks she’s beautiful from the look on his face.

‘I bought cinnamon rolls.’

As the words leave this mouth, she realises she can smell them wafting up from the kitchen and her stomach grumbles like a freight train in response.

She sits up, eyes open and throws back the covers.

‘So you’ll get up for baked goods, but not for me hmm?’ Killian chides, eyebrow raised in challenge.

She grabs his sweater from the chair in the corner, yanking it over her head to ward off the December cold. ‘If it helps, you _did_ buy the baked goods?’

‘Oh, that helps completely then.’

She crosses the room and rises on her tip toes to press a soft kiss to his cheek. ‘Good morning.’

‘Good save.’

She shrugs. ‘You love me.’

He wraps his arms around her waist. ‘I really do.’ And she’s almost used to hearing it now. He’s broken down so many of her walls until she couldn’t help but let him all the way in. She wanted to let him in. He’s the best damn decision she’s ever made.

‘Did you still get up at six thirty?’ she asks, wondering where he found the time to go out and get cinnamon rolls and smell like his shower gel.

‘Aye. Early bird gets the worm.’

‘And the baked goods.’

‘That too.’

He takes her hand and tugs her towards the stairs. She can’t quite believe she’s someone who holds hands in the privacy of her own home - their own home – but she wouldn’t have it any other way.

The sight of their Christmas tree greets her as she steps off the final step. He’s clearly been busy this morning. The lights are twinkling on the tree and there’s coffee in the pot. She smiles fondly at the memory of picking out a tree together a couple of weeks ago. He’d been so damn particular about which tree to get. She couldn’t have cared less so long as she was getting it with him. When he’d turned to tell her that he wanted to start of their Christmases together on a high-note, she entirely forgot that fact that she could no longer feel her fingers due to the duration of their search.

He did that to her a lot. Made her forget the rest of the world.

It’s been eight months of living together. Eight months that feel like the start of forever. She slides onto a chair at the table as he puts a plate before her and then a steaming mug of coffee.

‘My hero.’

‘That’s the plan, love.’

He joins her at the table, tucking in to his food quickly.

‘What have you been doing this morning? Worked up an appetite or something?’ She reaches across to swipe the powdered sugar from the corner of his mouth.

‘Yep, had things to do.’

‘Things to do on our day off?

‘Yep.’

‘At six thirty?’

‘You’re full of questions this morning, aren’t you?’

‘Well you’re being super-vague or something.’

‘Super-vague?’ He laughs. ‘Quite the wordsmith this morning.’

‘Shut up and eat your food,’ she grumbles. He’s like an enthusiastic puppy this morning. Cute and eager and loving.

‘What are you grinning about?’

‘How cute you are.’

‘I think you mean ruggedly handsome or striking, strong, athletic, manly,’ he answers pulling his chair closer to hers and very deliberately sliding his hand up her thigh.

‘Nope,’ she grins. ‘I mean cute.’

‘No more baked goods for you, then.’ He hauls her up from her seat and throws her over his shoulder as she shrieks.

‘No, Swan. You can’t call me cute and expect me to not prove my manliness,’ he says striding towards the stairs.

He does prove it. Very well, she might add.

She’s just finishing off getting dressed after her shower when he calls from down stairs. ‘Come on, love. We’re behind schedule.’

Schedule? Who has a schedule for a day off? He’s been spending far too much time with Mary-Margaret.

Fifteen minutes later, they’re bundled in his car. Emma’s hands are wrapped around the thermos mug he’d filled for her and she listens to him humming along to the song on the radio. He’s happy. She’s so glad she’s a part of that.

Leaning her head back against the headrest she watches the world pass her by outside the window. They’re nearby David and Mary Margaret’s neighborhood; the distance between the houses begins to widen, and trees line the sidewalk. It’s a beautiful morning. There’s a fine layer of fresh snow on the ground and a mist burning off across the water. It feels decidedly festive. She feels festive this year. And she always has on Christmas day, you can’t help it when you spend your Christmases with the Nolans, but this year feels different. She’s in the spirt or something.

Killian makes a couple of turns detouring off the main road and then another left towards the water. The houses Emma sees outside the window are gorgeous. Coloured cladding and cosy looking porches adorned in lights for the holiday.

They’ve been looking for a new place for a while now, but nothing feels quite _right_ or it’s too far from work for one of them to feasible and it’s not like they’re not happy at her place. Stupidly happy, as Ruby had called it the other day. She can’t really disagree.

Lost in her thoughts, she doesn’t realise straight away that Killian has turned the engine off.

‘Come on, love,’ he says as he exits the car and jogs round the get her door. He pulls her out, gloved hand in hers.

Confused, she looks around. ‘Killian, where exactly are we?’

‘Do you like it?’ he asks and the hope in his eyes jolts her heart.

She looks around. They’re on clearing facing out towards the water. The snow on the ground glistens - undisturbed. There’s a little jetty pointing out towards the water and it’s then that she notices there’s a blanket, Killian’s blanket that he always keeps in the back of his car, folded neatly at the corner of it along with his holdall.

How could you not like it?

‘I…yeah. The view is gorgeous.’

He lets out a breath. She watches it curl in the air before them. ‘Good.’

‘Good?’ Something is happening here. She can tell it from the way his eyes sparkle, and the tips of his ears redden. He should have brought a hat, it’s cold and if the blanket is any indicator, he has plans to be here for a while. ‘Killian, why is that good? What’s going on?’

He turns her to directly face out over the water. Stands behind her until she can feel the warmth of him pressed against her back. He drops his head slightly so it’s close to her ear. ‘It’s good because it’s ours.’

She spins around to face him so quickly that she has to grab onto him to steady herself. ‘Ours?’ she shakes her head. ‘As in ours?’ she gestures back and forth between the two of them.

‘Yes,’ he chuckles. ‘That is, if you want it to be. It’s technically on hold for us until tomorrow. First dibs and all that.’

Her heart is beating wildly in her chest. He’s done this for her? For them? Never in her wildest dreams did she think they could get a place here, like this. With these views.

‘How?’

‘Liam.’

‘What?’

That she wasn’t expecting.

‘Aye. Turns out the guy who owns the plot is one of Liam’s clients here in Boston. Some contractor who develops his own properties on the side or something. And, well, Liam knows we’ve been looking so he spoke to the guy and gave him some ideas of what we might be after and he called me to come look at this place last week.’

Killian places a warm hand on her hip. ‘I love it, Swan. I think we could be really happy here, but I’ll happily keep looking if you’re not sold on it.’

‘Not sold on it? Gods, Killian. It’s amazing but how could we…? Do we have the funds to buy this plot and build a house on it or are we just going to own a really nice garden with a view somewhere?’

Killian snorts in response. ‘Yeah, we can do it. I’ve gone over the figures and Regina has an architect friend who I’ve had a chat too. The guy who owns the plot owes Liam a favour, so he’s willing to sell it to us for a hell of a lot cheaper than he should.’

‘Geez, that’s some favour,’ she mutters in disbelief. She’s also a little in disbelief about Liam. They’re back on track, so to speak, after the incident all those months ago when he came to visit but she still sometimes feels like her doubts her. Elsa claims it’s because he doesn’t believe there’s someone else out there whom Killian could mean as much too as he does to Liam. If that’s what it is, then Emma figures she can deal with that.

She has no intention of going anywhere. Except maybe here, with Killian. To their new home.

‘It can really be ours?’ she asks in disbelief.

‘Yep.’

‘Yes!’

‘Yes?’

‘Yes!’ she jumps into his arms and he swings her around and if this is the first memory they have here, than it’s a pretty damn good one.

When her feet touch the ground, he takes her hand and guides her towards the jetty.

‘You came prepared,’ she teases.

‘Aye, you know me, love and anyway,’ he shrugs, ‘I figured we can’t keep monopolising Victor’s jetty for all of our special moments.’

‘This does feel pretty special,’ she smiles. It’s more than that. She’s building a home with the man she loves. It’s everything.

‘Good, that’s good,’ Killian nods jerkily pulling his hand through his hair. He takes a step back from her and Emma’s skin prickles. Her eyes search his, but his gaze is down as his hand reaches into the pocket of his jacket and when Emma realises what’s in his hand she gasps. She puts a hand over her stomach because she suddenly feels like she left it back at the house.  

She watches as he kneels before her and it seems to happen in slow motion. The way he smiles up at her and the red that flushes his cheeks. His knee must be cold, she thinks. Kneeling in the snow like that.

And so she gets down on her knees too before she can even really think about what she’s doing.

He laughs and cups her cheek. ‘Fairly certain you’re supposed to stand, love.’

She can’t quite formulate any words, so she kisses him instead. Softly. A promise.

‘Fairly certain you’re supposed to do that after I’ve asked the question too,’ he grins, and his eyes are so blue. Bluer than she’s every seen them if that’s possible.

‘I didn’t want to leave you down here by yourself. We’re a team, or something,’ she whispers against his mouth.

‘Right,’ he breathes.

He pulls back slightly so he can see her properly. ‘Emma,’ he smiles, ‘Swan. I love you. I love you in a way I never thought possible. Loving you is the best thing in my world and I will love you for the rest of my days and then some.’

He twines his fingers with hers. They fit. They’ve always fit.

‘I will always choose you. I can promise you that, Emma. I’ll always be by your side, love.’

She doesn’t realise she’s crying until he lovingly wipes a tear from her cheek.

‘Emma Swan, will you do me the honour of marrying me?’

For as long as she lives, she will never forget the look on his face. The love and the promise she sees there.

‘Yes.’

She reaches forward to hold his face in her hands and kisses him and she doesn’t care how cold and wet her jeans feel against her skin or the fact that snow has definitely worked its way inside her boots. She loves him. She’ll love him forever.

Pressing her forehead to his, she meets his gaze. ‘I love you.’

‘Aye, and I you.’

He slides the beautiful ring onto her finger. It feels right. He feels like her home.

‘Come on,’ he grins as he moves them towards the blanket. He clears off a patch of the snow near the edge of the jetty and spreads the tartan blanket down. She sits between his legs and leans back into him.

‘I like our jetty better than Victor’s.’

‘Aye, Swan,’ he says pressing a kiss to her hair. ‘Me too.’

Emma feels her phone vibrate in her pocket and she has no intention of answering it until Killian chuckles.

‘You probably want to answer that, love.’

Turning to face him, she frowns.

‘I may or may not have told Dave that he could tell Mary Margaret that I was going to ask you after 11.00am today. I love that woman, but she can’t keep a secret for her life.’

Her heart clenches in her chest and if that keeps happening today, she may just end up needing medical attention. ‘You asked David permission, didn’t you? He already knew?’

The buzzing in her pocket stops.

‘Aye, well sort of. I didn’t ask for permission exactly. You’re an adult and you know your own mind, love but I did wish for his blessing. Ruth’s too.’

‘I bet they gave it without hesitation. They both love you.’

‘Yeah,’ he says dipping his head in embarrassment. ‘They did.’

‘Thank you.’

The hum of her phone starts up again in her pocket. ‘You should really answer it,’ he acknowledges leaning forward to sneak a quick kiss. ‘She’ll keep ringing.’

He’s not wrong. Fishing it from her pocket she laughs at the fact that it is only 11.02, presses accept and leans bag into Killian’s embrace.

‘Emma!’ her sister-in-law exclaims through the phone. She sounds breathless and Emma can imagine her pacing in excitement around their kitchen

‘Good morning, Mary-Margaret.’

‘Don’t good morning me, this is the _best_ kind of morning.’

‘Yeah, it kind of is.’

She squeals so loudly that Emma has to hold the phone away from her ear. It gives Killian just enough space to press a kiss to her cheek laughing.

‘David! She said yes.’

David’s slightly muffled reply, ‘Well of course she did,’ makes them both laugh.

‘Emma, I’m so pleased for you. This is just everything you deserve.’

Emma chokes up and is glad her friend keeps talking.

‘I’m just happy for you. Both of you. Is Killian there?’

‘Aye, I’m here,’ Kilian answers from behind her.

‘Oh great. Wonderful. Stay there. We’re going to come to you.’ Mary Margaret explains.

‘You’re supposed to _ask_ , Mary-Margaret. This is their day,’ she hears David say through the phone.

‘You’re right, I’m sorry. I’m just –‘

‘- excited.’ Emma finishes for her.

‘They can come, love.’ Killian whispers against her hair, his arms tightening around her telling her it’s okay.

‘Actually, that’d be good,’ Emma replies. ‘We’d love to see you.’

There’s another shriek and an instruction not to go anywhere and a promise they’ll be there in ten minutes.

‘They know where to come?’ she asks after she’s hung up.

‘Aye.’

‘You brought David here already, didn’t you?’

‘Well in my defence, he sort of overheard part of my phone conversation with the owner of the plot and then invited himself along.’

‘They do that,’ she smiles. They do. They show up for her. They always have.

‘You have a good family, love.’

She shakes her head in disbelief. How did she end up here with so much happiness in her life and so much family? ‘I can’t quite believe it sometimes, you know?’

Another kiss pressed to her hair. ‘I know.’

‘You’re my family too now.’

‘Always.’

And Mary Margaret must have had Leo all dressed up and ready to go because they arrive in less than ten minutes and there’s tears and laughter and hugs and if she thought she knew what the festive spirit was before this, then she had no idea. She feels full. Full with warmth and love and everything she never thought she’d have.

Inexplicably, Mary Margaret has engagement banners and Emma thinks the likelihood is that she already had them stashed away just in case the moment ever arrived. She makes David take about forty more photos than Emma is comfortable with. Even some of the two of them with the ‘Happy Engagement’ banner wrapped around them and it might just be the cheesiest thing she has ever done but she doesn’t care.

She’s happy.

She feels Killian’s arms around her waist, hears the damn banner crinkle as she rises up on her tip toes to kiss him. ‘I love you.

‘I love you too, Swan.’

She’s with her family. She’s home.

\--------

The photo, the one of them kissing in the snow on the jetty of their house, engagement banner wrapped around them with the tips of Killian’s ears bright pink and Emma on her tip-toes - it’s their favourite. (Much to David and Mary Margaret’s delight. Her for the romance, him for the belief that it’s all to do with his superior photography skills.)

It sits proudly on the mantlepiece above the fire in their new house. The home they built together.

They’d moved in two weeks ago. Their first Christmas tree in the new house standing proudly in the corner.

She hears Killian come through the door. Pictures him hanging up his coat and neatly tucking his shoes under the cabinet. Placing his bag on the bottom step to take up stairs later.

‘Hello, love,’ he grins as he steps into the room and moves toward where she was admiring the photograph.

‘Welcome home.’

She turns to press a kiss to his lips. Missing him from his two days away with work.

‘I missed you,’ he says.

‘Me too,’ she grins. ‘It was a good win though.’

‘Aye,’ he kisses her again. ‘Just not as good as being with you.’

She chuckles. ‘Smooth.’

‘I thought so.’ And damnit, that eyebrow waggle gets her every time.

A giggle escapes her when he does it again for effect.

‘God, I love you,’ she laughs.

‘You too, Mrs Jones.’


End file.
